


Planning Permission

by blythely, circetigana



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Art History, Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Botanically Accurate, Crowley is a well-adjusted demon, Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), England (Country), Friends to Lovers, Gardens & Gardening, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Historical Figures, M/M, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), South Downs Grand Designs, The Arrangement (Good Omens), history of science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:14:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 153,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23671411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythely/pseuds/blythely, https://archiveofourown.org/users/circetigana/pseuds/circetigana
Summary: Aziraphale has put memories away for centuries. Carefully filed them around far-flung corners of the island he has claimed as his Principality. As he and Crowley celebrate 1000 years of their Arrangement, he begins to wonder what he’s been missing. Crowley has plans of his own, plans that he wants to share. But with the angel looking to the past, he knows he’ll have to be patient about their future.Or:Aziraphale has hidden his regrets. Crowley has hidden his hopes. One day they’ll unpack them together.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 546
Kudos: 183





	1. Glyndebourne, August

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter has authors' endnotes with links to visuals, digressions on research--and perfumes, because it's that kind of story. The full playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/71iTlcHySaUjrc4r0bpacI?si=2JHhcPVFRam0yuEGsWJb7g); another 10K of chapter commentary and occasional visuals are on the "planning permission" tag at [Blythely's tumblr](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/tagged/planning-permission); [masterpost](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/622653617082712064/planning-permission) here.

**_Part I_ **

Crowley rang him. “Ice bucket alert. Dig out your gladrags. We’re off to Glyndebourne.”

Aziraphale, immersed in the dusty midst of re-cataloguing the medieval philosophy section, glanced down at the scattered books below him, and up at the windows that he hadn’t noticed darkening when the evening light faded. 

“Crowley, it’s far too late to get down to Sussex.” He shifted on the ladder, balancing the telephone between shoulder and ear while frowning at an errant treatise on poisonous mushrooms. “Just where did _you_ come from, hmm?”

There was a pause on Crowley’s end. “Oh, I’m sorry, would you take a message please? I was hoping to talk to the angel Aziraphale, founding patron of over a hundred classical music societies. Wanted to suggest we see an opera all about Catholicism and the French Revolution, with an optional champagne picnic at one of his very favourite places in England. If you could ask him to ring me back my number is—”

When he put it that way. Aziraphale shook off his mental cobwebs, flinging the mushrooms into a box of orphans and returning Aquinas back to his shelf. “Yes, yes, of course. Distracted and deep in the re-cataloguing, you know.”

“Even if there were punters banging down your doors for mis-shelved editions you’d barricade them out. You can take a break, angel. In fact, I insist. Now, I’ve sorted the tickets; _tomorrow_ , obviously. That puts you in charge of the bottles. What have you been squirrelling away, waiting for a good excuse to drink?”

“Oh, let me think.” This was a much more pleasurable distraction.

Laughter down the line. “No cataloguing of the cellar yet?”

Aziraphale harrumphed. What did Crowley take him for? “All present and accounted for, and I’ve put in new climate control.”

“Of course you have. Is that for the wine, or for the Dead Sea scrolls and the knick-knacks?”

“Some of those knick-knacks are yours, dear boy.” Smiling to himself, falling into the rhythm of their banter, he warmed to the task. “I’ve a lovely Moscato d’Asti—”

“Nah, too much frizzante, not enough freezer where we’re heading. But a good dry Riesling would be perfect.” Crowley’s satisfaction broadcast down the line. “Oh, by the way, the dress code this year is vintage. Unhelpful for two eternal beings such as ourselves, but I’m choosing to interpret it as ‘1938 is dandy but 1958 is dangerously modern’.”

“I’ll wear white tie,” Aziraphale decided.

“Timeless,” Crowley approved. “Enh, tuxedo most likely for me. Although, the weather's fine, could always wear a dress.”

“That green gown in seventy-six?”

“Seventy-four,” Crowley corrected. “It was Halston. You liked that? Wasn’t sure about the one-shoulder thing.”

He remembered it rather well. “It was very striking, and you looked very comfortable.” Too much flattery wouldn’t do, however, or Crowley would be insufferable. “As you please. Until tomorrow, then.”

“Ta-ta, angel.”

Aziraphale descended to the cellars, where he looked out his dinner jacket and a selection of wine. The unfinished shelves were vexing, but Crowley’s invitation had lent something of an anticipatory holiday air to his mood and he was loathe to return to what was increasingly tedious work.

He poured out a measure of gin to demarcate an end to the day’s work, and took his tumbler upstairs to the shelves where he kept his more personal collections. Humming under his breath, he bypassed the temptation of the Jacobean playwrights for his collection of operas.

“Schubert, Puccini, Poulenc—ah.” He paused, brow furrowing, his mood deflating again as his gaze slid past his goal to an errant ‘M’.

Mason’s _Aeronautica_ boasted lovely plates depicting hot air balloons, but it most definitely did not contain a _libretto_. While he was grateful to Adam for restoring the bookshop, of course, his attention to detail was consternatingly youthful.

With a sigh, he pulled out the volume. As he did so, a single page fluttered out from its leaves and onto the floor. It was a yellowing programme for _Le Nozze di Figaro_ , 1939, Glyndebourne Opera. Conductor and cast were listed. Patrons were informed that the break for dinner in the grounds would be after the second act. It would have been an unremarkable bookmark if not for three things. 

First, the back was covered in his own handwriting, and described a summer day at Glyndebourne in the next year. 1940. Crowley, storming up the driveway, ashy and ranting in the midst of war, frantic with worry and accusations.

Second, up until that moment, he had no recollection of that day whatsoever.

Third, he knew without a doubt that he would not have placed a memory such as this in a book on transport mechanics, of all things, even if it had gravitated back to its operatic roots.

Aziraphale gingerly set _Aeronautica_ back down on the shelf. He once again read what he’d written all those years ago. 

Oh dear, he thought, drained his glass, and went to search out more of the gin.

* * *

“I must say,” Aziraphale said, as the Bentley belted up New Road in the approach, “I wasn’t expecting you to go for the one with the Carmelite nuns. Thought the Beethoven would have been more to your taste.”

“Ugh, come on, how many times have we sat through that bloody _Fidelio_?”

In past decades, Aziraphale had spent half his August cheerfully soaking up as much opera as he could. Crowley, with his endless appetite for the most modern of fashions that humanity produced, never had got the point of repeat performance. 

“You’ve heard Schubert played by three hundred bloody years’ worth of ensembles, and that’s not counting incessant rotation on Radio 3. Or the fact I know you paid his rent while he was writing those quintets. Don’t you want to hear something new?” 

Aziraphale’s standard argument never seemed to make much impact, but he tried it again. “When you know a piece so well, the charm is in the variations.” 

Crowley usually then scoffed that they went to at least two new restaurants a week and that made his position indefensible, and Aziraphale would mention a recent find involving Mongolian barbeque or herb-scented foam. The conversation would be derailed until the next time Aziraphale politely declined tickets for a popular band in favour of an evening at Wigmore Hall.

He asked, “You didn’t want to see _A Rake’s Progress_?”

Crowley snorted. "Gotta love the theme, of course, but I don’t love to listen to you bang on about Stravinsky’s genius for atonality all night.” 

It wasn’t _un_ true.

They turned up the drive. Aziraphale still wasn’t used to the large car park that had replaced the lawn, but then, the grounds catered to four times the people that it used to, and needs must.

“You’re thinking about the parking again, aren’t you?”

“That’s your job, Crowley,” he told him. “My function is primarily decorative.”

Crowley laughed, and spun them into the most convenient spot.

Out in the sunshine, he watched Crowley standing on the running board of the car to reach into the backseat, and reflected that the position might already have been taken. Certainly Crowley cut a dashing figure with his tuxedo and sunglasses, even with his bow-tie unfastened in driving mode. 

A tall woman in corporate uniform approached with a clipboard. “Mr Crowley? Mr Fell? Welcome. You’ve ordered the picnic and porter service?” She went through the details: afternoon aperitifs on the lawn, first act in the new opera hall, then back out to enjoy dinner in the late summer sun.

He looked down at the map and traced the path to their assigned spot. “Lovely! That part used to be too shady until that big oak was felled by lightning. Don’t you think it’s splendid in the sunset now?”

She nodded politely, already slipping towards the next arrivals. Aziraphale realised belatedly that the last storm to take out trees on the grounds was one considerably before her time.

Crowley re-emerged from the car with a picnic basket and a well-worn blue tartan blanket. “If we have the fancy service we don’t need this then, do we?” He waved the blanket and made to drop it back on the seat.

“Oh. I suppose not—”

“No harm in bringing it though,” continued Crowley. He passed it over and hoisted the basket. Delightfully, the clink of multiple bottles was unmistakable.

They idled down through the Bourne garden towards the main lawn. Crowley paused on occasion to make amusing editorial remarks on the planting. The tropical selection clearly passed his standards and the palms seemed quietly confident. A silver hosta even warranted a murmured “very good”, presumably for its lack of slugs. 

Around them, the opera-goers were light-hearted, dressed to the nines and grateful for escape from a London office, a Yorkshire town, a Shropshire farm. Aziraphale soaked it up. Varyingly sophisticated opinions on the _libretto_ were proffered but quickly ran out of steam without the main event to chew on. When the conversations circled around wine getting too warm and traffic being too slow, he looked over to see Crowley smirk.

Under the hazy sun and with the background burble of contentment from the throngs milling the grounds, Crowley was chipper, his commentary wide-ranging. Aziraphale thought of the yellowed programme tucked away in his jacket pocket, but set his trepidations aside. The right opportunity to talk more seriously would come without being hurried.

Their amble ended beside some dark and glossy foliage. Crowley exclaimed and leaned in so far that any less supple being might have tumbled face-first into the shrubbery.

“Crowley! _Please_ tell me you didn’t bring your secateurs after what happened last time.”

The demon emerged bearing a beautiful white blossom. “Gardenia,” he explained, like that explained everything. With a sleight of hand that demonstrated he _had_ been paying attention to the magic tricks, he twisted the stem and threaded the bloom through Aziraphale’s buttonhole. 

“You were underdressed,” Crowley said. “Can’t have you letting the side down.”

“Oh, it smells lovely.”

“Yup.” Crowley nudged him back into step. Clearly in an excellent mood, he ran his hand through the late-flowering salvias as they passed the floral borders of the main lawn. Wasps trailed in his wake out of nowhere. Immediately there were yelps of consternation and not a few soaked shirt-fronts as picnickers startled their wine out of their glasses in panic.

Aziraphale snickered, then thought better of it. “That was a little mean.”

“Not if you need pollination or pest control.” Crowley lifted his chin in mischief. “There’s an aphid issue in the sage.” 

Aziraphale loved all Her Creations as much as the next angel. But there was a _scala naturae_ for a reason. While he had no real opinion on the relative importance of aphids versus pretty purple flowers, in the celestial pecking order humans enjoying their afternoon tea ranked definitively above both. He waved an arm across the lawn, and the wasps buzzed away.

Their table was waiting for them, with its cheery tablecloth matching the cushions on the wicker chairs. Crowley set the neatly-folded blanket on the grass.

“Not a proper picnic without it,” said Crowley, and transferred bottles to the chiller underneath the table.

“It’s done the honours for a long time,” he agreed, and smiled. “But it’s nice to have a bit of luxury too.”

Crowley shook his head. “Not nice. Celebratory.” He flung himself into a chair, the long stripe of satin down his tuxedo trousers curling in three dimensions as he leaned back and poked his sunglasses firmly in place. “Driving’s exhausting, you do the honours.” 

Aziraphale blinked, and busied himself with the cork and glasses, mentally leafing through a personal almanac. A celebration? There’d been nothing particular in recent Augusts that they might consider worth celebrating—he’d told Crowley explicitly that he would never condone the demon’s role in the Great Train Robbery no matter how impressive, and certainly neither side had been particularly happy about Peterloo—

His internal Book of Days slammed open to the late summer of 1020 as he popped the champagne cork.

“Oh my!” he said, staring as the overflow spilled down the bottle to splash his shoe. “Goodness gracious. Yes, of course. A thousand years.”

“Are you going to water the lawn with that or d’you mind pouring some time soon? You know, to usher in this new millennium?”

Aziraphale was mortified. He’d been so distracted with his re-cataloguing, and then the thing with the programme—what a terrible friend he’d been not to realise the purpose of the invitation.

“Oh, Crowley.” He sat down with a thud. “I—hmm. It’s not strictly true that I’d forgotten, you remember I mentioned it in the winter, and besides—” 

“Yes?” Crowley reached out to take the bottle gently from him, and didn’t bother at all to hide his amusement while he poured.

“It depends on the calendar, in any event, and you know I prefer the old reckoning.” 

Crowley snorted. “You’re saying you didn’t forget, but you use the Julian calendar?”

“Well, yes, exactly so.” 

“Then I look forward to whatever treat you have planned in thirteen days’ time.” He handed Aziraphale a flute and tilted his own invitingly. “Bottoms up.”

Their box, stage left, had an excellent view. The lights went down and the discreet reminder to switch off one’s mobile phone finished scrolling across the subtitle screen. Crowley reclined beside him in a fashion that implied the seat was stretching some way beyond its usual remit, and gave an audible huff of contentment while taking off his glasses. 

Aziraphale was pleased to see that was now becoming a habit. One of Adam’s wee friends—the messy Brian, mouth full of post-Apocalypse cake—had been ever so helpful in that respect. None of them had been cowed at all by Crowley’s demonic amber stare.

(“Are those contact lenses? My sister wears cats-eyes when she goes clubbing in Oxford.”

“Err. Yes?” Crowley had lied, which had been largely pointless, given the stopping of time and other tell-tale hints he was not really human. 

Brian looked unimpressed. “No but do yours glow in the dark?”

“No, they do not glow,” Aziraphale had said firmly, aware that Crowley was exhausted from the transcendental efforts of the day. Certainly all out of party tricks, let alone miracles, but not above rising to the challenge of a scruffy boy. “He has very dull eyes, quite vacant when you think about it. Look at the time, Crowley, we should probably make our way home.”)

The demon had been too weary to raise a stink at the vacant remark. On the other hand, he quickly embraced the fiction of being a contact-lens-wearing eccentric and had done away with the dark glasses in dim light. 

Centuries interpreting the minute movements of Crowley’s laugh lines and the scrunching of his crows-feet brought their own expertise. But centuries of getting away with hidden eyes was clearly a hard habit for Crowley to break, and Aziraphale was rather surprised by how much his gaze darted about constantly. It made his rarer moments of concentration and absorption a little more potent.

Irony, wasn’t it? Since they’d averted the fates of Heaven and Hell, Crowley’s previously-studied moments of nonchalance had stretched out to become genuine equanimity. Aziraphale, on the other hand, found himself struck unaccountably by the fidgets. Of course he’d always had qualms and anxieties, but they were about vital things like the nature of goodness and suchlike. Not whether he’d made a rude faux-pas with an anniversary date. 

He lingered on Crowley’s profile, humming assent at the right places, as the demon pointed out the interesting bits of acoustic engineering they’d added in the fifteen or so years since their last joint visit.

_Dialogues des Carmelites_ began. The first act concerned a privileged young woman who retreated from the noise and terror of the French Revolution into a nunnery. A bit too much on the nose, but Crowley seemed simply to be entertained at the background aristocrats being pulled off the street.

Crowley tilted his head over, not taking his eyes off the captivating young Sister Blanche. Aziraphale couldn’t help but inhale—Crowley had brought a waft of open lilies in with him from the garden, at the turning point between glorious and migraine. 

“When do they bring out the guillotine?” 

Oh, honestly. “Don’t be so bloodthirsty,” Aziraphale scolded. “End of the second act, then it’s centre stage all through the third.”

“Fine, I can wait.” Crowley turned to eye him, conspiratorial. “Bit nostalgic, isn’t it? Downfall of the _ancien regime_ and all its patisserie glory?”

“I am a bit peckish,” Aziraphale said without thinking.

Crowley patted his hand. “Of course you are.”

Outside again to the balmy evening on the lawn. Plates were laid on their table and a basket of artisan breads heaped high. Wait staff arrived bearing delightful innovations from the kitchen garden, poured out wine, and with a slightly confused air and a flick of Aziraphale’s fingers, left them to it. 

“Getting greyer every year here,” Crowley observed in between mouthfuls of the burrata, which was disappearing from the communal platter at a pace more rapid than Aziraphale was comfortable with. 

“Mm,” he agreed. “They can afford it. Most can’t.” He trailed off. The haves and the have-nots, the widening divisions—they sat heavily with him these days. 

Crowley slid the final ball of cheese onto Aziraphale’s plate with a measuring gaze. 

“Oh, don’t fuss, dear, we’ve seen much worse, haven’t we?” Aziraphale beckoned over the hovering waiter, as diversion, but mostly because the main course was salt-marsh lamb.

“True,” Crowley agreed. “Plague was dead nasty. Colonialism. Slavery. Khmer Rouge. Rwanda. Crusades.”

“I would tell you to stop listing your accolades but I know for a fact we’re fifty-fifty on that list,” he said ruefully, leaning back for his plate to be swapped out. 

“Less a list, more of a multi-dimensional Venn diagram, when you think about it.”

“Let’s not.”

Crowley shrugged. “Have you seen Mr and Mrs Festival lately?” He pushed his plate away and shifted his chair around, angling away from the table to stretch out his legs and to rest a casual hand on the back of Aziraphale’s chair. The lily scent of him was faded now, replaced by the evening chamomile of the lawn.

Aziraphale no longer socialised with the Christies. He’d been close with John and Audrey as they built up the Glyndebourne Festival here on their estate. He’d been chummy enough with the son, but it was only possible to fool two generations that you were the spitting image of your father, not three. As soon as the grandson had taken over the gig he’d stopped calling in.

“From afar, you know,” he said, recounting the ever-expanding Good and also Lucrative Works that the family had on, the community groups and talent development. On the lawn, diners stood to stretch their legs, rummage for wine or shawls, retrieve a flyaway hat. Crowley had been right—it was subdued here, but that didn’t stop the mood from being one of contentment with small luxuries.

“I remember how you loved them.”

At that, Aziraphale turned sharply.

Crowley’s upturned face was relaxed, and almost sleepy; his expression turned sloe and distant as the sun waned just beyond the tree-line. “The family. You loved their vision, that they wanted to make this place and make it to last.”

Aziraphale thought about how Crowley rarely, so rarely, used that word to describe anything, and how right he was to use it then. He thought about the programme he’d found in the book, the memory that he had so carefully hidden from himself so carelessly gone astray. Returned to him so abruptly that it had stung and ached as it re-established itself. 

At the back of his chair, Crowley’s hand moved. His thumb, cool and firm, pressed briefly between Aziraphale’s shoulder blades. It was a deliberate and gentle touch, one intended to reassure, to calm.

“You know me very well, don’t you, Crowley.” It came out stiffer than he wanted it to, and he felt a surge of regret as Crowley’s hand fell away. 

“I should hope I do,” Crowley answered. “A thousand years of an Arrangement. Would have failed in the first century if we didn’t have the measure of each other. And besides, you spent the early Thirties sending me all manner of ridiculous telegrams.” 

He sent his voice into an unerring parody of how Aziraphale feared he must sound when inebriated. “MOZART IN SUSSEX SPLENDID STOP DO COME STOP BRING CHAMPAGNE.” Crowley’s mouth twitched with remembered humour. “Never did manage to make it—sorry ‘bout that—but, ah, hindsight. I could have been sending you messages back: FOUND CALLING AS EINTÄNZER STOP DO COME KREUZBERG STOP BRING DANCING SHOES.”

Crowley’s hand slid back onto Aziraphale’s chair. “You would have enjoyed the cabaret, angel. But you were right about this place; it is splendid. We’ve had some good times here, the last few decades. Better late than never?” 

Now, he thought. He leaned forward. “But Crowley. You did come.”

Crowley eyed him sideways, but anything he might have said to that was interrupted as the waiter’s voice sounded above them, startling Aziraphale back. “My pardon, sirs. The lamb.”

A small phalanx of staff converged at their table, and in the ensuing melee of jus and pommes Anna and seasonal greens, the moment, the conversational thread, was lost.

Aziraphale set his fork and knife down at the four o’clock. He dabbed his mouth, then folded, and refolded, the napkin back onto his lap. Out of interest, he checked in on Crowley’s plate. The demon’s appetite was a famously fickle thing. He always had his suspicions that Crowley actually ate far more than Aziraphale noticed—he did tend to get distracted during excellent meals—but there’d been no question he’d enjoyed the lamb this evening almost as much as he’d savoured those long-ago crêpes.

When he mentioned as much, Crowley grinned. 

“I still can’t believe that you got into all that trouble for some fried batter. No wait, yes, I can. Never change.”

“Fried batter? Blasphemy!”

“They were delicious,” Crowley acknowledged. “Mostly I remember the smell. Warm sugar. Mmm.” Without waiting for Aziraphale’s rejoinder, Crowley clinked his fork against his glass. Their waiter appeared at his elbow. 

“Orange armagnac,” he decided, “and bring the pudding.”

“Right away, sir.”

Pudding was a Lammas delight. Plump, juicy blackberries that bled across glistening honey-cake. A rocher of exquisitely balanced lemon verbena sorbet to cut through the sweetness. The rich, burnt peel of the brandy flooded his senses. 

Too soon the bell came for the final act. Around them, people’s laughter and conversation swelled to an excited hum as they left their meals to return inside.

Again Aziraphale folded, and refolded, the napkin on his lap.

“Shall we stay here then?” asked Crowley.

Crowley was watching him with his softest look of patience, an expression that Aziraphale had not known to treasure until those frenetic decades across history when it had been lost to the rigours of the world. In contrast, Aziraphale felt full of impatience. Furious that the accidental discovery of his errant memory had turned him rather like a character in the opera they were there to see—hiding from turmoil, nothing to fear but fear itself.

“I would like to stay,” he said. “But I’m afraid then you’ll miss the martyrdom of the nuns and, my dear, I’d not like to ruin your enjoyment.”

That won him a chuckle and a top-up of expensive Gascon liqueur. “Love me a martyred nun,” Crowley agreed. The gloaming settled in. The accommodating staff lit them a candle, and brought them a cheese course, then left them be.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, until Aziraphale had pared off enough membrillo to bolster his courage.

“You didn’t send me a telegram,” he said, sudden, “but you sent me a handkerchief.”

“Hmm? What?”

Aziraphale frowned in memory. “From Germany. It was silk. You sent me a silk handkerchief marked with red lipstick. From the cabaret, you said in your letter. You were writing, sitting in the Tiergarten, at those last moments before that war. I have the letter; I’m not sure about the handkerchief. I remember it though, so vividly. I remember thinking, Crowley sounds tired. I remember wondering about the kiss.”

“Angel. Stop. What are you on about?”

Crowley had put his glass down and was staring at him with what was easily read as concern. But Aziraphale needed to tell him; he owed it to Crowley, to his friend. 

“I remember wondering where you were when it started. I had hoped you would be safe, but then my notes didn’t get through, and there was nothing from you.”

Crowley opened his mouth. Closed it. Let Aziraphale speak.

“When you came to me at the church in 1941 I was so relieved to see you. And I felt—” Aziraphale paused. That was more than he wished to say, and beside the point. He settled on, “I was relieved. I had thought you might have been discorporated because I hadn’t heard from you until that night.” He fell silent, then heaved a sigh. “But that wasn’t true. You came to me the year before. Here, at Glyndebourne.”

“Why are we talking about this now?” Crowley asked. His voice was sharp, but not unkind. Aziraphale grew strength from that fact.

“Because, well, I’ve only recently discovered it.”

He submitted to Crowley’s scrutiny then, let the demon look him over carefully, like he was not only examining every inch of Aziraphale’s physical form but counting feathers in the aether.

“You put the memory away.” 

Aziraphale was a curator and a collector, but he’d never been a lepidopterist. His finest treasures were carefully folded away, wrapped, boxed. Stored, to be brought out only with the utmost care and intention. Never pinned and displayed to impress. He knew he had a tendency towards greed, an impulse to hoard. He also had a tendency toward comfort, in all its physical, mental, and metaphysical dimensions. 

Why should these tendencies be any different when it came to something as long-lived as memory?

“I put it away in a book,” Aziraphale agreed. “Your entire visit. A summer afternoon in 1940. I was here, in the park. There were children, all around.”

“The evacuees from London,” Crowley said. 

“Operation Pied Piper. Three hundred children sent here for their own safety.” 

“And you their guardian angel. Scoffing scones and jam on the lawn, if I recall, on that very picnic blanket.” 

Aziraphale said tentatively, “You were quite angry with me.” He touched his fingers to his pocket, and felt the crinkle of the programme. With it came a rush of long-forgotten images and sensations.

_Crowley, his sunglasses forgotten, gold eyes wild._

_Crowley, smelling of gunpowder and blood and fear._

_Crowley, accusing him of—_

“You told me to show you my wings. Like you expected something terrible, like I was being sinful. You were afraid I’d Fal—”

“ _Don’t_. Don’t say it.” Crowley’s expression was tight and unhappy. Like it had been on that day in 1940. “I wasn’t angry,” Crowley said, but he sounded the way he did when he was trying to convince them both of something foolish. “It had been a long while, angel. I’d gone through London on my way back from the continent and you weren’t there. I’d thought maybe you were out,” he gestured vaguely, “in the whole mess of it. Poland. North Atlantic. Imagined all sorts. And then I found you here. Hale and hearty. Eating jam on the lawn. I wasn’t angry. Just...worried. Surprised.”

“My dear—”

“Look, I was glad that you were here, tucked away from it, even if it didn’t sound that way at the time.”

Aziraphale filed this new information away; let it ease into the cracks of the memory and soften its edges. 

To Crowley’s admission, Aziraphale said gently, “I was glad to see you whole and safe, too. But you _were_ angry. And I was not as understanding as I could have been. Looking back now, I see that I likely came across as arrogant.”

“Never,” said Crowley. “Weeeeeell. Perhaps a bit.”

“You know, I don’t want you to think I was avoiding the fight. I did volunteer to go abroad. Michael and I had a long discussion about the best place for me to be and she agreed I was much more effective on the home front.” Aziraphale paused. He’d wrestled with that uncertainty from the moment the rumbles of war began, wondering where Heaven saw the line between guardian and soldier, if the ramifications of that blasted sword would never stop. 

But since then, when he thought about what he had done during the twentieth century’s second major war, he had always been satisfied with his contribution. As Principality, he had defended both the great and the small. His memories of being at Glyndebourne during this time were bittersweet, faded now into the gold of summers past. His Presence had saved hundreds of lives. And he had known that another pull at his Grace would come, and when it would, he would go elsewhere—to poor battered London perhaps—and save more.

Aziraphale had been so sure of what he was doing, that it was unquestioningly right that he was in this place. He had thrived for months on that certainty—until Crowley’s reaction had blistered him with doubt. This, Aziraphale knew, was why he had taken the memory of their encounter and put it away. So that the gold of summers past would remain untarnished. Because he could not have borne _doubt_ , not when doubt would have brought guilt in the face of so much death and misery. 

Aziraphale sighed. “I don’t think I ever properly explained to you then why I stayed. Here,” he gestured back towards the house, and then more broadly, “and here in England.”

Crowley leaned forward, eyes intent. “You protected kids. Three hundred souls, able to grow up when they might have been smashed to rubble otherwise. You’ve got nothing to answer for, least of all to me, Principality.”

A rush of relief flowed over Aziraphale. He felt his shoulders begin to relax, when he hadn’t even realised they had been tense. “Oh. Yes. Thank you.”

Crowley settled back and waved away the thanks impatiently. “So. Other than suddenly being reminded of how cranky I can get when I haven’t slept in a decade and they close all the good bars in Europe, what’s got your knickers in a twist about this memory?”

“That’s just it. The suddenness. I opened a book, and there was the programme, and there it all was.”

“Can’t survive thousands of years with human wiring without filing away a few bits and bobs. We all do it.”

“But not like me to lose track of where I’d filed it,” replied Aziraphale. “It wasn’t in the book that I’d put it in.”

“And…others?”

Aziraphale grimaced. He hadn’t even thought to wonder yet about the memories hidden _outside_ of the bookshop.

Crowley swirled an index finger in his brandy, then abruptly drained the snifter. “Well, that’s awkward.”

“Yes. Indeed.”

The evening had set in. Aziraphale breathed deeply and tried hard to let the last of his tension dissipate alongside the day’s heat. Now that he was listening, he could hear the crickets in the undergrowth. It was a comforting, timeless sound. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve quite ruined our celebration.”

“Not at all.” Crowley assured him. “Somewhere inside there are loads of nuns getting their heads chopped off. You’ve hardly a monopoly on melodrama.”

For that generosity of spirit, Aziraphale shared out the last of the armagnac. He conceded, “I suppose it’s a minor point in a thousand years of formally sharing our troubles. To our long-lasting and ever-fruitful Arrangement.”

Crowley clinked glasses with him. “I’ll drink to that.”

### About the Authors' Notes

These chapter-by-chapter notes are not exhaustive by any measure, nor are they meant to be in the style of Pratchett & Gaiman. Early on, we embraced the idea that we would saturate this story with detail because Blythe knows no other way to write and Circe picks up her bad habits. However, there’s no earthly reason you, dear Reader, ought to know these facts in advance. We've stowed them here at the ends of each chapter, rather than in the Endnotes section, in order to defeat that most wily of adversaries, character limits.

**Eintänzer**  
A paid male dance partner or instructor in Weimar Berlin. Oh, the temptations.

**Gin**  
Aziraphale is drinking [Psychopomp](https://www.microdistillery.co.uk/), a microdistillery gin. Crowley mocks the English gin craze mercilessly (the only botanical worth drinking is akvavit), but Aziraphale—who’d always been amenable to a bathtub tipple—pays him no heed and has his own bespoke mixture of aromatics made up by these lads in Bristol.

**Glyndebourne**  
The Christie family have been serving up opera with champagne picnics at their estate since 1934. During the Second World War, [Glyndebourne](https://www.glyndebourne.com) housed young children evacuated from London. This chapter (and so in fact this story) was in part conceived because Blythely just could not fathom the lack of fic where tuxedos and summer picnics were mandatory.

**Halston green gown**  
Crowley wore [the Halston](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1994.414.6/) to Glyndebourne in 1974. Despite playing coy forty-odd years later she was well aware of the angel’s admiring looks at the time. Crowley never wears the same gown twice, but she did think of it fondly enough after that to store it in the Met for posterity.

**Julian calendar**  
While the Western world mainly moved to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, [Aziraphale didn’t](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar). This was because, in the grand scheme of his ethereal nature, what was the difference of a few days anyway—and not because, as Crowley insinuated, he’d once had a disagreement with Pope Gregory about that Roman Baths conversion.

**Mason’s _Aeronautica_**  
Aziraphale hadn’t actually ever read [this one](https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/aeronauticasket00maso), but it had interesting pictures.

**Operation Pied Piper**  
Thousands of East Londoners, many of them children, were [evacuated](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwtwo/evacuees_01.shtml) in 1939 to the countryside.

**Poulenc’s _Dialogues des Carmélites_**  
A Fifties [opera](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd9EFJaURmI) that’s pretty much exactly as Crowley describes it. Part of the Glyndebourne 2020 season. Ouch, that’s a lot of guillotine. (It is absolute infernal coincidence that Crowley’s advance purchase of tickets was the same week that sexual misconduct came to light and nearly scuppered the whole production.)

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 1

[Ave Maria (arr. for clarinet and cello)](https://open.spotify.com/track/0iiLBI3gAHRhChZVEOmmMj)  
Arr. Anonymous, Johann Sebastian Bach  
Martin Fröst, Torleif Thedéen

[Shake It Out](https://open.spotify.com/track/71iSmEeF0qRVyULABxP75P)  
Florence + the Machine  
  


#### Perfumes

[Gardenia](https://www.chanel.com/us/fragrance/p/122210/gardenia-les-exclusifs-de-chanel-eau-de-parfum/), by Chanel  
Aziraphale is wearing this in 1940; the boutonnière takes care of him in the present

[Scarlet Lily](https://www.shayandblue.com/scarlet-lily-fragrance-100ml.html), by Shay & Blue  
Crowley loves a lily; this is like being assaulted by a lily horde


	2. Soho, August

Thirteen days after the champagne picnic, Crowley breezed into the bookshop. There’d been no word, but unspoken expectations had been a mainstay of their millenia-long association, so. 

“I bring chocolate and good vibes,” he called out as the door obligingly banged shut behind him. It was true: he’d spent most of the day at the Notting Hill Carnival and he had neon handprints on his jeans to show for it. “Hope you’ve got the old wine and good times.” 

He dropped a box of books by the door—late returns, but his fines were always forgiven in this establishment. The backdraft of air caused dust motes to dance in the late afternoon light. There was no sign of the angel, but that wasn’t unusual. The old place might give off the sense of crammed ye olde book shoppe, but was, in fact, deceptively huge. More of a cathedral than a lady-chapel to the written word, with treasures from the airily-domed oculus to the deepest crypt. 

Crowley had never understood the fetishisation of cluttered spaces with yellowing paper, but then again, he had spent most of his existence trying to avoid visits to Hell. Not to be judgemental—he of all beings was in favour of different strokes—but _come on_. How the love of the second-hand bookshop had outlasted the invention of the e-reader would forever be a mystery to him. 

“Aziraphale?”

He slid the box of chocolates onto the counter, right next to a pile of cloth-bound mildew-magnets. The angel had been reshelving for the last six months, with manic energy at times and lethargy at others. What with the disruption-to-routine of the last eleven years and then surviving the Apocalypse, it was no wonder the local Principality was out of sorts and eager to set things back in their right place.

Crowley understood. Seeing the bookshop burn had been...well, he’d call it _difficult_ because any truer sentiment felt too raw to acknowledge. Sure, he would have traded the bricks and mortar in a moment for the knowledge that Aziraphale was alright, but this place was important to—for—both of them.

In the end the losses that day had not been too much to bear. And if he were the thanking kind, he might have thanked Someone for that.

He supposed he could always thank the boy. 

Adam had done well with the remaking. Not quite the same, of course, but then, he’d taken the idea of the bookshop not only from the angel’s memory but from Crowley’s own imagination. It hurt to think about those long moments on the airfield, and all that untutored Will, rummaging through his head. Not making Good, so much as making Neutral, and saving them all with the very ambivalence of existence. Or, _ineffability_ , if you preferred. Which Crowley didn’t.

So there were new nooks and crannies in the bookshop he kept coming across: architectural ideas he’d suggested off and on through the twentieth century but had been denied, usually due to concerns about the structural integrity of the adult book (film, toy; pick your decade) emporium next door. When Starbucks had moved in, he’d pressed his suit again, but could still recall Aziraphale’s flinty expression as he calculated how it would reduce shelving in the upper story. Not even the thwarting of corporate evil had been persuasion enough for a flying buttress.

Paused by the shelves, he was struck by a thought: Adam had rummaged in both of their heads to recreate the bookshop. What had he done to remake Aziraphale?

“Ngk.” He straightened from his slump into a more respectable slouch. “Nope. No. Not _ever_ going to ask.” 

“Ah, Crowley! Are you here to help me sort things out?” Footsteps down stairs, but from far above; Aziraphale must have been up on the roof.

In no mood for menial labour, he drawled, “Delivery for Mr Fell,” and gestured toward the glossy box.

Leaning over the balcony, the angel’s face lit with greedy anticipation. Crowley would deny until discorporation that this exact expression had been the reason he’d acquired the blessed treats.

“Caramels, ninety percent cocoa,” he added, because it made Aziraphale dip his lashes in what probably had once been a gesture of divine thanks, and Crowley never lost his appetite for blasphemy. 

“For afters?” 

After what? He tamped down the rude replies, and took the safer road of wry suspicion instead.

“Depends what you mean by sorting.” Crowley glanced up at the precarious piles of books leaning against the balustrade. “I came here expecting a lavish shindig. Cup of tea and a biscuit at least.” Last time the angel had asked him to help “sort” things they’d ended up in a fight over classification systems. 

“You’re far too late for afternoon tea.”

“It’s carnival weekend. Got caught up in it all; force of habit, all those people in one place.”

“I can tell, you’ve got bits of streamer in your hair. Here, pop this on,” Aziraphale tossed something down to him. He caught it as the angel disappeared from view again, calling after him. “I need your particular expertise on the terrace.”

Crowley held out the item, which unfurled into an apron that read ‘Demon in the Kitchen’ in red lettering.

“I resent this,” he called up. “This is stereotyping based on protected characteristics.”

A snort. “Bring those chocolates, please.”

Sense memory was a bastard. Holding a small box of sweets in the midst of half-empty shelves was enough for Crowley, his own recollection of 1940 intact. He thought about what Aziraphale had made himself forget.

He had been fresh back in London, _finally_ , and sorry for himself because he’d known the angel would be abroad. His imagination had furnished the images: Britannia ruling the waves, Aziraphale well suited to Navy whites.

But damn him for a fool, he’d wandered into Soho and picked up custard tarts from Aziraphale’s favourite bakery to convince himself the craving was for the familiar sweets and not the rare book dealer down the street. 

“Boarded up,” the serving girl had said of the shop. 

Then the woman sheltering next to him shared the letter from her son as the sirens wailed. Safe in the countryside, she’d told him, through grateful tears. Half the boy’s words were blacked out by the censors but enough remained about Sussex and opera gardens for Crowley to guess where he’d been evacuated. 

Crowley had thought about how glad the angel would be about Glyndebourne being put to such use. For a moment, he had smelt the vividness of books and grass and remembered a smile like the sun, until the whine of the incendiary put him out of all such fond thoughts. Gunpowder dust once more; fire and water, rotten earth. The mother’s pale skin glimpsed underneath the debris.

He’d so yearned for the sun, in those dark days. 

He had collected the Bentley from storage and set out the following day. He’d had the thought that he’d owed it to Aziraphale, though nothing in their Arrangement had obligated him to check up on the lad. Thousands of kids were orphaned every day. But what was proof of free will if not a nice gesture from a demon, right?

He remembered the air: fresher than London as the Bentley sped on country lanes, the potent bloom of sweet williams as he walked up the winding driveway. Summer haze had given way to disquiet, unease. Then numbness when he felt the angel’s Presence, when he _saw_. Anger battling gratitude, then relief, at Aziraphale seated on his favourite picnic blanket, a scattering of children playing tag nearby. 

The terror of the obvious explanation—the corrupted angel, tempted by love and protection, or worse, by his own comfortable pleasures. Following his own path beyond Her grace.

Crowley had been exhausted. The Eastern front. Belgium. Bodies. He’d just pulled rubble off the mother of one of those souls under Aziraphale’s self-proclaimed watch. In the face of Aziraphale’s calm, of his surprise at the confrontation, Crowley had been furious. But most of all _frightened_.

He’d demanded to see the angel’s wings, like an idiot. Like he’d had a right.

They had been shockingly white against the blue sky; he remembered staggering under the ethereal blast. When Aziraphale had steadied him, he’d shuddered from the burn.

Merciless kindness. Heavy, smothering sorrow.

“Stay. Rest,” Aziraphale had said. His voice had been a terrible balm.

Underneath those bright wings, Crowley had wanted to hide in that sense of place and purpose. Yet he’d still felt it, the precipice. The bite of the wind at its edge. The heady vertigo of the angel spending too many miracles to create his own sanctuary, while the rest of the world smouldered. Aziraphale had found a balance here between his Calling and the call of the void, but the wrong words, the slightest push, and Aziraphale might Fall.

Crowley hadn’t stayed.

In the present, he took a moment by himself to shake off the shadows of war. No hardship, in the Architecture section. Crowley stacked a tidy pile of his pilfered, now-returned books for the next frenzy of bibliophilic attention. Re-cataloguing hadn’t reached the northern recess of the ground floor yet. There, floating stairs provided an off-putting health and safety nightmare that deterred casual browsers from attempting to sneak upstairs. Under the stairs was ample home for folio sizes of art and design books. Heaven forbid—literally, the local Principality was adamant—the removal of a shelf or two from the treasured seventeenth-century bookcases to make room. 

In the 1980s, Crowley had stashed a Wassily chair back here next to the Art Deco and Bauhaus collection on the solid principles that it was thematic and also incredibly uncomfortable for human beings to sit in. He wished he’d had a hand in Breuer’s design: it was the kind of expensive absurdity that drove marriages to the brink and investors back out the door, and while Aziraphale hated it, he saw the virtue in stopping browsers from getting comfortable in Crowley’s favourite little corner.

On the back stairs to the balcony gallery was a new acquisition clearly awaiting his attention. “Oooh, hello. I’ll be back for _you_ ,” Crowley said to the large botanical volume.

The late afternoon sun slanted in the western windows above, edging journal-bound volumes of the Royal Society rag. Aziraphale had, of course, subscribed to the _Transactions_ since 1665 and resisted all suggestions that they should go downstairs in the rolling stacks. Crowley idled a hand along the spines of the 1940s and mused on the angel salting away the Glyndebourne memory. That one in particular, and the admission of others. How many others, Crowley wondered, but that was an old question and one he tried not to ask.

Up another flight. The map room was shut. He peered in the door of what Aziraphale called his workroom and what currently smelled like a stable. Binding glue and buckram edging. _Nice and Accurate_ sat open on a stand, cotton gloves folded neatly beside, some sort of bookbinding surgery in progress. Looked like Junior Nutter was still toying with the angel’s affections then. Clever lass.

More stairs.

“There you are. I thought you might have been prowling around and found Mr Curtis’s herbal.” Aziraphale stood in silhouette halfway up, meaningfully dandling an empty wine glass at him as Crowley climbed up to the terrace.

“Score. Have you and the work experience girl been out at auctions without me?”

“Her name is Anathema. Yes, we have and you _might_ say thank you to her for that.” Aziraphale said, a little acid, which meant he must be feeling chipper.

Crowley stopped two steps below the angel to be subjected to the minor indignity of having crêpe paper plucked from his hair. “I might,” he huffed. “Might not.”

“You will if you know what’s good for you,” murmured Aziraphale. “There’s another bit here—” 

Tilting his head down from the light, he saw Aziraphale had bare toes, and his trousers were rolled up his ankles. A trailing stem of honeysuckle was trapped in one cuff. On any other celestial being it would have been beatific.

Crowley straightened and brushed him off. “Enough grooming, you primate.” The angel was framed against another blue sky right now, and that wouldn’t do for peace of mind. Crowley shooed him up and the moment in memory was broken. 

At the top of the stairs, Aziraphale stood aside. “I see you’ve had a busy day.” He gestured at the handprints. 

Truth be told, they were mostly from a toddler who wanted to see the parade, but some were also from the toddler’s mum.

“Yup. Record attendance.” 

“I heard about the arrests. Rosé or bubbles? The rosé is better.”

“Pink then. Don’t blame me, you know it doesn’t count if you don’t actually mean to cause mischief. If _you’d_ come along there would have been marriage proposals and the return of all lost handbags,” Crowley accepted the glass with a clink. “Just background radiation, innit. Cheers.”

The terrace spanned the footprint of the building, the atrium’s dome on the northwestern side. Soho had been on the downward turn in 1796—immigrants moving in and Mayfair on the up—when Aziraphale had bought the building. Actually purchased it, for sterling and guineas, with two lawyers and a contract involved, but he wouldn’t let Crowley stand as one of the lawyers despite his long association with Gray’s Inn. 

(“It’s the ritual of the thing, Crowley. Proper procedure.”)

The angel was always a stickler for authenticity. 

Back then the view had been middling-storeyed rookeries out to St Paul’s in the east, shading more southern genteel from St Martin-in-the-Fields around to St James’s Palace. Now, while Aziraphale had wisely screened the built-up west from the other terraces with bamboo, to the east the City view was an unrecognisable flare-up of glass and steel. The journo commentariat called the twenty-first century skyline a tortured heap of novelty chess pieces, but screw them, it was _marvellous_. It cost an even five million for a one-bed with this view in the W1 postcode now. Crowley had immense professional pride in the London property market. What an enticement to sin.

The floor looked inviting. Despite the gathering rainclouds, a late August sun had blazed all weekend, and there were some aspects of his base nature that Crowley was incapable of resisting. Hot stone therapy was one of them. 

He sank to the terrace’s slate tiles; handily, it didn’t occur to him that his jeans should have been too tight for that sort of motion. He sighed happily at the first seep of summer heat, and would have sprawled down all the way, but for an insistent clicking as a serious-business pair of barbecue tongs were threatened in his direction.

“Lounging later,” Aziraphale told him. “I need infernal embers for this meal, and you know how long it takes to get the coals going.”

“Yes, chef,” he groaned, hoisting himself back up, but the objection was all show. His stomach looped with satisfaction. Aziraphale had planned their meal around a hellfire-augmented grill, and he’d also once been curious and greedy enough to suggest the experiment in the first place. Very bad angel. Very good cook, though.

“Give me those. Safe distance.” Crowley took Aziraphale’s tongs and personal space, pointing over the angel’s shoulder to the blooming trellis. “Your honeysuckle needs pruning.”

From below the bower he could see it was lopsided, and the scattered garden implements told the story of a distraction halfway through deadheading the roses. 

Aziraphale turned his head to look and Crowley watched the open collar of his shirt stretch. He felt that twitch of impulse to touch, the tricksy one he sometimes couldn’t control despite millenia of practice. He tamped it down, pushing up his sleeves instead of dragging the angel’s attention back. Such impulse could be channeled more usefully. Slowly, he let dark fabric drag against his own bronzed skin until it went taut. The fine hairs on his arm prickled and he carefully encouraged them. Skin to scales, limbs to single purpose. 

Nothing manifested conveniently on the back of his hand or the point of an elbow, but he could feel where the texture had changed across a shoulder. He slid a thumb along his collarbone, catching a loose scale under the nail and twisting. It tugged free with a sharp reminder of the pleasures of shedding it all at once.

Crowley dropped the scale into the coals and darted out his tongue to taste the air. “How much ssspecial sssauce are you after, angel?”

“Enough to get a good char on,” Aziraphale called back.

Like angels and demons, if there had once been a common ancestor between hellfire, divine fire, and mundane fire, it had been corrupted way back on the ancestral tree. Crowley sometimes thought of Heaven burning the angel in a column of hellfire, without justice, without mercy.

He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with _that_ memory. Too dangerous to keep, perhaps, in terms of their current detente, but too much a part of his structural integrity to deconstruct.

Crowley placed his hands over the grill, feeling the rising heat prickle against his downturned palms. He leaned forward, and _blew_. The puff of air caught the first flickers, twisted it from orange to the deepest red, and fed from his intent. The pull from his power, the like-to-like call of the elemental flame, was its own satisfying heat.

“Fire burn and cauldron bubble,” he murmured, which made him think again of the witch. She’d love seeing this, he knew, and wondered again what the angel intended there. She’d need to watch herself.

Crowley shook the soot from his palms, letting his black nails shrink down to their usual trim, and lowered the lid on the grill. “Right. We’re up and cooking.” He spied the laden table. “What _are_ we cooking?”

Without waiting for an answer, he lifted up a tea towel—George and Mary’s Silver Jubilee 1935—to scope out dinner. A mortar full of seasonings (a quick sniff said juniper and thyme); blackberries; a bawdy pile of peaches; uninteresting green things; and a stoneware jug with a lid that came off with a gamey squelch. Bacon fat larded thickly over—

“Rabbit with peaches,” Aziraphale appeared at his elbow. “Please, Crowley, do wash your hands before you go sticking your fingers in the food.”

“You’re cooking with hellfire and you’re worried about _my_ food hygiene?” 

The angel pouted. “I am extremely careful, I’ll have you know—”

Crowley had seen the extractor hood set-up downstairs. It was better than most chemistry labs. “Fair.” 

“—that aside, this is a new shirt and so I thought that you might do the honours—”

Aziraphale trailed off into one of his hopeful faces, framed by his armful of surplus roses and trailing vines, but Crowley chose to put aside that outrageousness because he’d just clicked:

“I hope you aren’t also planning a torrential downpour to complete the re-enactment?” Summer of 1020 had been a washout, particularly in Northumberland. Did Aziraphale’s commitment to authenticity extend to weather?

Aziraphale glanced at the grey clouds banking in the east and shook his head. “Oh no. Not my doing.” He divested the greenery into a bin. “No posturing lords, or malodorous soldiers, either.”

Crowley mused, “Earl Ealdred was an argumentative bastard.”

“Excuse me, as though that brute Siward was any better. You just parachuted in with the suggestion, but it was me who had to spend a fortnight trying to convince Ealdred to consider him as a future husband for his daughter.”

“We got them to see sense though and make treaty. Problem shared, problem halved, Arrangement arranged.” 

(Siward had gone on to murder his wife’s relatives, though enhh, hadn’t taken much to see that one coming, and neither Heaven nor Hell had cared to intervene.)

Crowley sniffed again at the rabbit. “This your invention, then?”

Aziraphale gestured—rosé low in his glass already—to Jane Grigson’s _Good Things_ , open on a handwritten recipe. In slanty cursive, it was signed off: _My best guess on your “eleventh century” grub! -J_

“Mostly dear Jane. I told her the story, minus the miracles and so forth, and she took it as a challenge to come up with something.”

Crowley was grateful he’d chosen that moment to sling on the apron. Ostensibly it meant his nifty Blake shirt wouldn’t get splattered. Practically it meant he could hide his reaction to hearing how long ago the angel had planned this anniversary meal with his cookery writer bestie. Decades ago, she’d died.

“I do miss that old duck,” Aziraphale continued, “she knew her way around a mushroom.” He picked up a peach and a knife to begin complex de-stoning manoeuvres. 

“And your bookshelves,” Crowley snorted. “Never going to forget the outrage when you realised half your culinary history had been pilfered for Grigson bestsellers.”

That got him a pained look from Aziraphale. “It was worth it. Her suppers alone—”

A quick waft over the coals said the grill was properly fiendish. Crowley busied himself laying out the rabbit pieces, fully aware that his technique was being silently judged.

“Looking forward to browsing Mr Curtis,” he said, partly so Aziraphale didn’t cut his thumb through inattention and partly because he’d never seen a seventh volume of _Flora Londinensis_. The angel had his mis-printed Holy Books, Crowley had his rare botanical illustrators, everyone had hobbies.

“Sadly not the same binding as the other six,” Aziraphale said, who had the 1777 first edition at a suitably off-putting height in the shop, “but the provenance is all verifiable. You should turn those now, they were a tad confit to start with.” He slid the plate of peaches across the table and sensibly got out of spark’s way.

Peak antiquarian, thought Crowley. Find some long lost volume, leave it lying around like a trivial paperback, then fuss about it not matching the rest of the set. 

The buttery sweetness from the peaches steamed up in the heat. They were obviously home-grown: the espalier on the south-facing wall was picked bare, and they had the particular lushness that the angel coaxed out of his little kitchen garden with longing looks and precisely calibrated doses of nitrogen. 

To be accurate, it was more of a pudding garden. There were only fruit trees and vines on the terrace, a smattering of herbs and flowers. A pudding _bedroom_ , really. An intricately-woven hammock was slung against the jasmine trellis.

The burst of peach almost rapidly turned to the scorch of toffee. Aziraphale made a soft, insatiate noise at the smell and then proceeded to cough violently.

“You’ve only got yourself to blame for inhaling,” Crowley laughed, checking the fruit and deciding it was done. He doled everything onto a platter and shut the grill. “Can I go off-shift now, chef?” 

Aziraphale, who had recently replaced overt thanks with smug little smiles that raised Crowley’s hackles only marginally less, simply handed over the neglected wine and started forking up a piece of rabbit for close inspection. 

Crowley wandered the terrace perimeter to make inroads on his rosé. From the street below, the sound of traffic and laughter drifted upward. It had always been that way in this central spot: bright with people, something going on. Defiant, vulnerable, usually covered in glitter...of all the neighbourhoods of London, it was no wonder the angel had chosen it for his Grace for the last two hundred years. 

Speaking of the last two hundred years. He threw back the rest of the wine and wandered over for a top-up. “By the by, are we open to enquiries on progress?”

“A little patience, my dear, about five minutes.” 

Not good then. Not if Aziraphale was deliberating misunderstanding when he’d been asking about the bookshop audit.

“Brought you back a few odds and ends,” he kept on. “Didn’t fold the pages, promise.”

A pause, and the clink of cutlery before Aziraphale said lightly, “I do know when you denude my shelves. And if you _have_ folded the pages, you’ll pay the fine.”

Crowley turned to lean back on the balcony edge. He swept a toe across the tiles, considering the angles of both the skyline and a possible rejoinder to _that_. He opted for the safe reply. Well, somewhat safer. “I was swotting up on grass roofs.”

“Oh. Redecorating,” Aziraphale nodded distractedly. “Must be something in the air.” 

It was the same tone he delivered statements like “oh, _bebop_ ”, or “E-books”, and betrayed the same endearing lack of engagement with Crowley’s reality. 

Crowley sighed, and prodded scornfully at a bedraggled fern that was desperately in need of cutting back. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to open the conversational gambit with “not really loving Mayfair any more, how about you?” and it was foolish to divide the angel’s attention on an empty stomach. 

Dinner was laid out amidst a haphazard collection of dishes, most of which should have had an accession number in the Ashmolean. “Disappointing, angel.” Crowley peered over the top of his glasses as his rosé refilled with something more effervescent. “For true nostalgia I’d expect barley ale.”

Aziraphale made a pained face that perfectly fit a shared memory of the peasant beer that had accompanied their spitted rabbit al fresco in the freezing Cheviot Hills. “I don’t believe I’ve had that particular beverage since,” he shuddered. 

“Unusually strong stuff,” Crowley agreed. “Tasted like a muddy riverbank but knocked you on your arse quick enough.”

Aziraphale tried to hide a smile in his wine glass. “You were very much worse for wear, if I recall.”

“Mmph,” he said, because he’d taken a forkful of his meal. 

Aziraphale held back, uncharacteristically restrained—but no, he was waiting for the verdict on infernal spice.

“Fuck me, that’s amazing,” Crowley gestured enthusiastically for the angel to dig in through his next mouthful. “As always I accept no responsibility for tarnishing your immortal soul, but at least you’ll go out on a high.”

“Hhhgnn,” Aziraphale keened, and for a while they made happy sounds together. 

“It tastes just like it did then, only not at all.” Aziraphale laughed. “Isn’t time a funny thing. Memory too.”

“If I recall, you ate most of my portion then too.” Crowley scooped up the last blackberry before it could be nicked from his plate, and darted it to his mouth. Woody, tangy, a hint of smoke and juice. “So, some things never change.”

Aziraphale’s eyes were bright as he watched him eat. “You’ve got a bit—”

“Cheers.” Crowley used his sleeve to get the reaction.

“Oh, _really_ , Crowley.”

“Nah, we didn’t have cloth napkins in 1020.”

“Not even a handkerchief. It was rough and ready, but of course most things were. And that was with the luxuries of a noble party! You should have seen me out on pilgrimage.” 

Crowley leaned back, pleasantly full and fond. “You looked miserably ascetic enough if I recall.” He speared his knife with the burniest bit of rabbit—primarily for the angel’s own moral safety—and shifted the dish aside. “Speaking of the greater pleasures of worldly excess, I don’t think I’d ever noticed how rude this is.” He tapped a fingernail on the mosaic underneath the glass tabletop and swivelled his head. “This one of your rescues from Naples?”

“Mmm. Herculaneum,” said Aziraphale between bites. “Floralia festival, don’t you think?”

Crowley lifted his plate to get a better look. The produce was certainly...voluptuous. 

“I keep meaning to have it embedded in the floor, inside. Acid rain and all that.”

“Don’t.” It came out a bit sharper than he meant, and Aziraphale’s brow wrinkled in query.

Keep your options open, he wanted to say, it would be a bugger to lift it out again. Instead: 

“It’s filthy, angel. That calla lily has milk and honey running down—” 

“—yes it does.” Aziraphale pushed a glass aside enthusiastically in order to point. “And look at the hare, there’s a missing bit but you can just see it’s got a preposterous—“

Crowley held up a hand. As much as he enjoyed the angel’s vast vocabulary of outdated erotic slang, something had changed. The almost constant and comforting weight of Aziraphale’s gaze had suddenly become heavier. 

Aziraphale fell silent. Crowley cocked his head, set down his fork, and slanted his gaze to the south. There was a figure against the skyline, standing still and straight amid the crooked chimneys, two roofs over.

“Either it’s _Event Horizon_ all over again or we’ve got company.”

Aziraphale’s fingertips drummed against the tabletop, narrowing missing the hare’s preposterous, ahem, limb. “They’re only company if we wish them to be so.”

And didn’t he know it. They’d spent three days and four nights on the bookshop’s new sigils, stopping only for Aziraphale to eat and read, and for Crowley to slope off private-like to create and destroy some infernal energy on his own time. The combination of the occult and the ethereal, wreathed together with intent. It had probably given Heaven and Hell conniptions wondering what the blessed damnation was going on.

Crowley lounged back in his chair. There were seventeen passable weapons within range, not including the local Principality, and a grill full of hellfire. “Wolf’s at the door,” he murmured. “Shall we let them in?”

Aziraphale grimaced, which was as good an answer as any.

A rising susurration, then they were there.

They wore a woman’s corporation. Gleaming dark skin made darker against the pristine white of an immaculate tracksuit. He’d seen them once four months ago, in the street, and then again weeks later in the park, engrossed on a phone. Unmistakably _angel_ , but they had yet to approach. 

Crowley’s first impression had been that the Almighty had reproduced his favourite aesthetic: bouncy curls; a smile ranging bashful to dazzling; terrifying righteousness; biteable thighs. Now, the two of them together, he saw that there the resemblance to Aziraphale ended.

“I am She. The angel Sereniel.”

Ouch. He winced in several dimensions. That’s right; it had taken Aziraphale a while too before he’d learned to tone down the harmonics.

“Offer our guest a drink, Crowley.” Now, his angel’s voice was calmly mundane; polite, even.

Crowley almost felt sorry for her. “Delighted,” he replied easily. “Rosé?” He poured and handed out a glass without turning his back on her. Eighteen weapons, he thought, now that the bottle was nearly empty and _le vin_ wouldn’t go to waste.

She lifted one high-definition brow. “A generous demon?”

“That’s me. Hashtag munificence. Go on, take it.”

“Crowley, don’t speak in tongues in front of our guest.”

_Our._ Crowley noticed she noticed. Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice. Regrettably, she didn’t take the drink, with all the ritual obligations implied. Worth the try, though.

“‘Hashtag’, demon?” Her expression brightened sweetly. “You’re on social?” She miracled up Crowley’s Insta with a happy smile. “Oh, good, I have more followers than you,” said Sereniel. “SerenaTAP. On all platforms.”

“Very modern,” murmured Aziraphale, all resting bitch-face. 

“Thoughts and Prayers? What happened to the good old days?” Crowley groused. Honestly. “Angels used to be more smite-y than this. I’d get some exercise and a high from the blood; they’d swagger off home with their bruises and the thrill from their brush with rough trade. Win-win.” 

Regardless of all the pleasantries, he was wary. The gold wings embroidered on her tracksuit’s lapel were shining like the pips of a uniform. She was a ranking Power if he’d ever felt one. 

He lowered his shades and let her have a snake-eyed glare. “Aziraphale, can I make our guest leave yet? I feel like her trash-talking my plant blog is probably enough for a first date.”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale. “I imagine she fancies she’s doing reconnaissance.”

“I want to know what you’re doing here,” she told them.

The angel sipped his wine. “We’re _emeritus_ ,” he said. “We’re doing exactly what we please, no more and no less.”

“Even as _emeritus_ ,” she said, “you have certain responsibilities to the community.”

“I don’t believe I signed any terms and conditions when I gave Heaven my own.”

“You can’t just _leave_ Heaven,” countered Sereniel. “You _are_ Heaven.” 

Neither of the angels looked to Crowley.

“My dear,” said Aziraphale. “I am exactly myself.”

She stared at him, face impassive. In the space on that other plane, between her gleaming wings, shone the steel of a sword.

“Try it,” said Crowley. He flicked his right fingers out towards one of their wards, and the stored power crackled pleasantly against his skin. Judging from her flinch it didn’t feel quite as good to her.

She smiled toothily. “No need. I’ve seen what I need.”

“Ugh. I don’t follow back by the way.” 

She disappeared, stepping off the ledge.

“Do ring before you pop by again,” called Aziraphale brightly. “Business hours only.”

Crowley laughed. The tension broke and the evening sounds of the street rose around them once more.

“Well.” Aziraphale sat down at the table again and chased the last of the peaches around the plate. 

Crowley kept a weather-eye on the rooftops, while he waited him out. He wasn’t disappointed.

“ _Thrills and bruises_ , Crowley? Really?”

Satisfied she was gone, Crowley slouched back into his own chair and sprawled back, letting the afterglow of the truly excellent meal chase the satisfaction of both distracting and scandalising the angel.

“Please. You’ve enjoyed our tussles. Especially the ones where I wasn’t actually doing anything to thwart but you wiled me anyway. You had fun, admit it.”

Aziraphale gave him a long look, then flickered his gaze away. “Yes, there were times when I probably did.”

He sounded weary; looked a little lost. That clearly wouldn’t do.

Crowley said, “D’you know the best part of Arranging things to suit ourselves for the past thousand years?” He snapped his fingers with one hand and poured from the new bottle with the other; five flights below, the cellars were a little emptier. “You don’t have to handle all the details yourself. When you need to forget, you forget. You’ve got someone to watch your back where it matters.” He leaned across the table with the wineglass.

Aziraphale took it, and as Crowley pulled back, he found himself caught lightly by the wrist. He hissed at the contact, but didn’t move.

“And when I start to think I might want to remember? Now that I can?”

He curled his fingers around Aziraphale’s wrist, holding him in place even as he was held. “I’ll still have your back.”

A memory of long ago: solemnly clasping hands by the fire, moths darting about their heads, the fear and heady joy of making the deal at last after centuries of trying. The angel was not caught, nor trapped, but captivated. Curious. 

Of all he’d felt in that moment, he remembered that curiosity the most. For once, he hadn’t been alone, hadn’t been the only one who wanted to _know_ :

What would happen next?

Crowley pulled back first, and for the first time in a long while, it didn’t feel like a retreat. They sipped their wine, listening to the crackle of another fire, a thousand years later. 

Eventually, Aziraphale sighed with practiced and theatrical gusto. “Strange to meet my replacement. I suppose it was the grill that broke our little detente.”

“Quite the hygiene inspection.”

“It was worth it,” Aziraphale decided. “The meal was _divine_ and it’s better to have introduced ourselves. Even if she was, well. I suppose she’ll acclimatise soon enough.”

“What, go native? Please. Did you see her limited-edition trainers? Those were about four of the seven deadlies before you’ve even laced them.” He grinned at Aziraphale. “Wonder how long it will take before she clocks that life on Earth’s trickier than she thinks it is.”

“I’m sure she’ll learn. She may not be as worldly as I am—”

“—for which I am profoundly grateful. A demon can only take so much—”

“But if she’s as fortunate as I have been, it will come.”

Oh. That was. His cheeks warmed. That was his cue to change the mood before a thousand years of getting the angel to do his dirty work turned _maudlin_. 

“I’d be happy to help her out, too,” he said. “Well-meaning Instagram influencers are fantastic for spreading discontent. She just needs a mentor.”

Aziraphale waved his fork at him. “For that, I’m having the leftovers. All of them.”

He settled back at the table to watch him eat. He took it back: with the right angel, the tussle was still win-win.

### Authors' Notes

 **Ashmolean  
**[Museum in Oxford](https://www.ashmolean.org/), famous for (amongst other things) their collection of Mediterranean ceramics from the Classical period. Elias Ashmole, the founder, is a personage with which both demon and angel no doubt have previous. ****

**Blake t-shirt  
** The authors are a bit disappointed over the Tate Britain's actual selection of Blake t-shirts given their [2019/20 exhibition](https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/william-blake-artist). Crowley, however, expected there to be an awesome Urizen t-shirt, and so there was, in his size too. ****

**Curtis’s _Flora Londinensis  
_** Aziraphale acquired a handsome 1777 edition for Crowley. This is [the original bible for the diversity and uses of plants](https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/62570#/summary) found within London. ****

**Gormley’s _Event Horizon_ (London, 2007)  
**An [open air art installation](https://www.theguardian.com/arts/gallery/2007/may/03/art) that the authors found to be both breathtaking and wanky in equal measure.

**Jane Grigson’s _Good Things_  
** The 1971 classic. Aziraphale adored Jane and her approach to food. [Read the profile.](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/21/ofm-classic-cookbook-jane-grigson-good-things)

**Notting Hill Carnival  
** London at its best and most chaotic. Crowley’s been an [avid attendee](https://nhcarnival.org/) since the Sixties. Aziraphale’s more a Pride sort of being. ****

**_Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society_  
** The [flagship journal of the Royal Society](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rstl/about). Said to be the oldest and longest running scientific periodical in the world. The back catalogue is online but that’s made zero difference to clutter in the shop. For the sake of her career one of the authors would do well to have submitted a few more Phil Trans articles rather than writing this behemoth of a story, hey ho. ****

**Rude mosaics  
**[Lots of them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_art_in_Pompeii_and_Herculaneum) in Pompeii and Herculaneum, towns famously buried under the Vesuvius eruption in 79. ****

**Wassily chair  
** There’d been a contest in Hell to see which demon could come up with the most horrendous way of hurting mortal flesh. Crowley’s submission of this [mid-Twenties Bauhaus design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Chair) still gets talked about by the water cooler.

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 2

[Halo](https://open.spotify.com/track/4JaoU6fL2Ifz2gDyFYtpiP?si=Ig0Oh9YcQnSxIsicHEl_yg)  
Ane Brun, Linnea Olson

[Prickly Pear](https://open.spotify.com/track/1upMxXOj13P8aMf5ZW2hIL?si=1CO_R5GISv6T9kqCf00zow)  
Portico Quartet

#### Perfume

[Luna, by Penhaligon](https://www.penhaligons.com/luna/)  
Aziraphale’s Soho terrace in summer


	3. Bristol, 1497

“You’re a bit briny.” Crowley surveyed him from hose up.

Aziraphale wasn’t sure if it was insult or observation. He did have a whiff of salt, true, but he thought he looked quite the sailor’s part, browned and bright of hair.

He sniffed. “You smell like horses.” 

And that would have likely put Crowley in his trouble-making mood; he loathed riding. Aziraphale’s own journey to Brigstow had been much more pleasant. The sun had kept her face on the crew the whole journey. His original plan—to take the Saint’s Way, and up from the Tor on Glastonbury Isle—had wafted away with the sheer delight of being on the waves. The ship had made its way from Rotherhithe, round the Dover cliffs and the sandy-banded south coast, before tacking her way off the Lizard. He’d stayed on board until the Bristol Channel then rowed on the tides up the River Avon. 

He shuffled along the tavern’s bench, obliging. Crowley hooked up a travelling cloak and swung his very long legs over the bench. In so doing he brushed his elbow against Aziraphale’s game-in-progress, sliding it across the table. Crowley’s hand flashed out, darting-quick, and he caught a half-scallop gamespiece before it could tumble to the floorboards. 

Black nails scratched lightly against the creamy shell while Crowley examined the set-up with an overly-familiar smirk. “You’re losing again, angel. Haven’t you been trying to win at this game since Rome?”

“About as long as you’ve been trying to tease me about it,” Aziraphale agreed peaceably. Absently, he cleared the pieces and rolled up the game cloth. “I had the strangest feeling that you would show up again.” 

“Pleased not to disappoint. What brings you out to the West Country?”

“Nothing I thought appropriate to delegate to you.” He cast a meaningful look across the room, where Giovanni Caboto’s backers were toasting one another and spilling their cider freely.

The man himself sat at the head of the table. It was the night before Caboto would attempt to voyage the Atlantic again; while he was lifting his tankard to the heavens boisterously, barely-concealed terror greyed the edges of his aura. He was lucky only angels—and demons—could see the evidence. 

Aziraphale turned back.

“They tried last year,” said Crowley, as the merchanty-looking chap sitting along the bench next to them tried harder to eavesdrop. Clearly a spy. “Failed miserably, it seemed. Witchcraft amongst the crew, or sea dragons, or bad winds, something like that. Don’t know how he’s managed to raise the coin for another go.”

“You don’t say.” He lifted his tankard for a mouthful of cider. Fermented apples weren’t his normal tipple but one did as the locals did when west of Aquae Sulis. It was very good in this busy port tavern, and especially so with the sharp cheese they stored in the local caves. He hoped Crowley wasn’t feeling terribly diligent about whatever trouble he was here to cause, because a day spent extensively blessing had depleted Aziraphale’s ability to thwart.

Caboto—Cabot now, apparently, in the English style and also in the style of someone with his name on a few bailiff’s lists in between Venice and Bristol—continued to gird his loins. Going by the number of empty tankards and the ever-increasing level of a raucous “We shall be famed o’er the kingdoms of Christendom, sirrah” at the entrepreneur’s table, he was also girding the loins of several crew and investors. In the time it had taken Aziraphale to locate a quieter table, beckon over the tavern mistress with a cheese platter, and make room for Crowley’s knees, Cabot had twice waved about his letters patent embellished with Henry Tudor’s seal.

“Would you,” Crowley leaned over Aziraphale to the merchant-probably-spy, “not be so obvious?” He lifted up his smoked lenses and gave the man a yellow stare. “So rude.” The man sloped off and left them for a group in the corner.

Satisfied, Crowley sat back and surveyed the tavern. “So. Brigstow, eh? Been a while since I was here...last time the Vikings were still running slaves over to Eire. Ooh, what is _that_ , can I try it?”

He was too slow to prevent him from plucking a corner of his cheese. Crowley licked it, made a face and spat it out, took a slug of cider and reached for another piece with mouldier bits. “Mmm, that stuff is weird.”

Aziraphale, who had seen this reaction from his associate with every single novel food item from the first leavened bread, just let it go. 

“Umm, a tad earlier, for me, I think. Nine hundreds? One of those Aethels was running things. It was before our, well, _you know_ —but it was never so nice here as down the road at the Roman spa—”

He broke off to allow himself a little reminisce. Hot water and vigorous massages the likes of which he’d not had since about 402 AD. He had a soft spot for this western part of the country in general, for all that he was built to guard an Eastern Gate.

“The Ottomans are doing a decent line in plumbing nowadays,” Crowley said, “why don’t you put in for a stint in Constantinople?”

“I’ve decided not to do long-term secondments anymore,” he replied. “I’m _quite_ settled here.” It felt sweetly virtuous to say it aloud, especially to a fellow being with some understanding of what it meant to claim dominion of a place. He hadn’t left English territory for any significant period of time in—goodness, was it _really_ —five hundred years.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon.” Crowley gave a little seated half-bow. “Principality.”

“Mind yourself or I’ll smite.” It was an idle threat. He liked it when someone used his title. He had earned it, after all, in long centuries endowing his Grace across every church and town. “You’ve been in Florence, yes? Or was it Milan?”

“Around and about, yes,” agreed Crowley. His brow furrowed. “Don’t you, don’t you miss seeing the world like we—like you used to, though?” His voice raised over the increasing din. “The art’s really getting so much better now, they’ve learned about perspective. And they’ve worked out planets properly back in the old country, clever Mohammedans.” Crowley broke off and his mouth set itself into something akin to concern. “Things are really happening out there, you know?”

Aziraphale closed his eyes briefly, and sent an enquiring thread through the tavern’s throngs. “Six Spaniards, a handful of Norsemen, two Veronese, Occitan, Bavarian. “Do you know, Crowley, there’s a chap here from Samarkand. Anyhow, my point is, I don’t need to go anywhere, the world is coming here. And this isn’t even London!”

“Point taken,” Crowley said to his tankard. “Only, it’s a little inconvenient, if you’re me.”

What a warm thought, that the demon was put out by his absence. “I’m sure you make do.” Aziraphale nudged him and waved over at the mistress for another round, mouthing _more cheese for my friend, prithee_. 

Cabot’s party gave their loudest roar yet, as a chorus of hip-hoorahs travelled the room. Two punters in the coveted window seat—fresher air, no backs to the room—drained their ale and left. This saved Aziraphale from the small effort of suggesting they moved on. He didn’t ask if it was Crowley’s work; after all, plausible deniability was essential for those such as they. 

Aziraphale sat back into the vacated spot with a contented sigh, deliberately not noticing the grimy window panes at his head. Beside him, Crowley slithered his cloak off and disarticulated his lower limbs into their broadest sprawl. The fading light caught a glint on the edges of his cloak’s clasp, his ember hair. It was past midsummer, just before harvest. The day still stretched pleasurably at both ends, but it was late enough that the mistress brought a candle with their victuals. 

“Our ships at sea,” Crowley toasted. He knocked their cups together.

Aziraphale’s cup was halfway to his own mouth before he realised that the toast was partly a question. “ _Our_ ships?” he demanded, quickly putting a pin in the matter and trying not to splutter. “Are you here to _champion_ this voyage?”

“Oh. Is that you too?” Crowley politely asked back, his head tilted to one side as he eked out first the widened eyes and then the mischief of a grin that Aziraphale was intimately familiar with.

He huffed in mock disapproval, well-versed in this routine by now, but he did like to see the demon smile. “Henry is keen on a new source of timber for the Navy.” There, that was neutral enough to suffice for a reply. He drank his ale, mostly so he didn’t have to see Crowley lift his mouth into a smirk. 

“Henry. Of course.”

Even a short discourse on His Majesty’s thirst for shipbuilding soon lured the eavesdropping spy back their way until Crowley flicked cider at him and hissed. 

Once they’d been left alone again, Crowley said with a wince, “Not the bloody magical forest islands again. You realise they’ll all perish horribly if they go that way, I mean, shit happens, but drinking seawater’s an awful way to go.”

“They won’t be going in search of Hy-Brasil this time, Crowley.” Some Celtic legends never died. “They’ll cross the Atlantic and end up on that nice island with the puffins if they don’t do anything stupid.”

Aziraphale nodded over at Cabot’s group, where a map had been laid out on the ale-soaked table with a lack of regard for the solubility of ink. Presumably they’d be needing that once they sobered up. He squinted, altered the base nature of permeability on the parchment, and picked up the thread of conversation again. “If I remember my junior internship rightly, there were plenty of exceptional oak stands in that part of the world—oh, I do hope that chap doesn’t fall off—”

One of the flashier merchants stood precariously on a stool and launched into a rant directed at the Hanseatic League: damned bureaucracy concerning cod, how could an honest English fisherman be expected to make a living, it was just like the French and their wine blockade, we’ll show them, we’ll find new trade!

At their own table, the conversation turned to how the insatiable quest for new lands, for forests and spices and pretty silk, was not new.

“That’s the peril of your gone-global world,” Crowley pointed out. “Can’t even have a quiet pint these days without some Venetian trying to flog coloured glass. Then there’s all that nicking of clever ideas like magnetic compasses and three-masted sailing vessels from the Far East only to pretend Europe invented them first.”

Aziraphale sighed, conceding. “It is crass, I suppose.”

“Nahhh.” Crowley waved his tankard. “They’ve been doing it for centuries. Just a bit boring, really. More fun if they mixed it up a little.” 

There was enough wistfulness in the demon’s tone that Aziraphale suddenly worried that there was something he’d missed. Fresh souls for damnation would have been the standard motivation for Hell to back Cabot’s Atlantic mission. It was certainly possible, but—

“Crowley, what exactly are your intentions? Don’t bother bluffing, good fellow, I’ve been working all afternoon on the _Mattea,_ and her crew. There’s simply nothing you could do to sink her. She’s packed to the crow’s nest with blessings.” Truth told, he was quite knackered after a hard day at the benedictions.

“Me, bluff?” Crowley said, stretching an arm out along the windowsill. “You’ve nothing to thwart, I promise. Like you,” he poked Aziraphale’s shoulder and gestured out the window in the direction of the docks, “I am genuinely invested in that particular little raft making landfall on the other side of the ocean.”

“Only you?” He had learned that sometimes Crowley carried out Hell’s orders to the letter. That meant he took each letter and rearranged them to mean something entirely different.

“No, angel. My superiors are also keen to see new markets open up. We understand there’s one particular hierarchical state right now that’s ripe for a takeover.”

He frowned. He’d also been briefed on the Maya, but the directive from Upstairs was that She was no longer pleased by human sacrifice and it’d be good to cut back on that sort of thing, by any means necessary. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, for the Maya or for anyone else. If Her plan was to spread the current version of the Word a little further, and King Henry also wanted a little resource security for his Nation, then it would of course fall to him as Principality to make certain this English ship, and not any other—

“Oh.” said Aziraphale, recent politics dawning on him. “Oh yes. Of course.” The usual vague orders from Hell always left room for a side-project: Crowley was aiding Cabot’s voyage because it was _English_. “You’re thwarting Isabella and Ferdinand, then.” Explained the spying Spaniard, he supposed. 

“Very good,” Crowley smiled tightly, but his eyes looked haunted under the shadow of his hat brim. “Undoubtedly your Henry is also a ratbag, but I’d rather back the crew that wouldn’t immediately start with the torture and the burning pyres. Got to give the locals a fighting chance.”

“Of course, there won’t be anything as bloodthirsty as that nasty Inquisition business.” He immediately winced. He, as a rule, tried not to mention the Inquisition out of respect for Crowley’s sensitivities on the topic.

“You sound quite sure about that.” Crowley drank. “Nice to be sure.”

He shook his head, aiming for cheery but falling quite short of the mark. “No, no, no-one here’s been very keen on saving souls by conquest for ages, it’s gone quite out of English fashion, since, errr, the, ah, _trendiness_ of the Holy Land.”

He worried at a crumb of cheese on its platter. Cabot’s precious royal letters _did_ contain some lines about the ‘provinces of heathens and infidels unknown to all Christians’ but that was just stock and standard phrasing. 

The pursuit of profitable concerns like timber and spices would surely be more appealing to the crew than getting worked up about any divergent ideas of the Divine they might find on the journey. Only a score of sailors to crew the tiny caravel _Mattea_ , after all. The Friar in charge of their immortal souls seemed hardly over-pious given the quantity of ale he’d imbibed this evening.

Hopefully. 

“Blessings packed to the crow’s nest, eh?” Crowley’s drumming fingers on the table interrupted his reverie. “Standard hallows, or do sailors get something special?”

“I’ve quite out-done myself, serpent.”

“I can believe it, the effort and backstory you’ve put into the role. By the way I _do_ like the beard, goes with the whole nautical theme you have here.”

“Oh hush.” He was grateful that his beard was a lush maritime production covering his face, because he could feel his cheeks turn a little pink. “It was just for the trip here, blending in, you know.”

“You should keep it.”

Aziraphale rubbed his chin. “To tell the truth it’s quite itchy.”

“I thought angels had infinite patience and forbearance,” Crowley snorted.

“So did I,” he said mournfully.

Crowley lifted a hand, and he flinched away in sudden reaction. Before he had time to recant, the motion turned smoothly to a come-hither twist of fingers, and a disconcerted Aziraphale heard:

“Master Crow?”

Dragging his gaze away from Crowley’s impassive face, Aziraphale swivelled to see a man in a lopsided cloak and an absurd hat picking his way around the tavern. He held a flagon in one hand and a sheaf of parchment in the other. 

“Sheriff Amarke!” called Crowley, sounding suspiciously hearty. “Well met.” To Aziraphale, aside, he murmured, “Your pardon, angel. My business has arrived.”

He sighed. He was comfortable, and his Grace was spent until he had a proper rest, and thwarting never matched with cave-aged cheddar. He cradled the remainder of his cider protectively.

Amarke arrived at their table and squinted down at them. “Master Crow, on thy feet, if it please you to stand,” he said, in the tones of a man who was used to his lackeys being very pleased indeed to stand. “And your navvie,” he nodded at Aziraphale, who had been called many things by many people over the centuries but added _navvie_ to the list as a new one.

Crowley, damn his eyes, rose fluidly to his feet with not a trace of fatigue visible in the looseness of his muscles. Aziraphale, fighting his sea-legs and too much fermentation, found he had to use the edge of the table for assistance. He cast the demon a look he knew was transparently plaintive.

Amarke turned away to lift his flagon in the direction of another rousing speech from Cabot’s direction, and for once, Crowley obliged with an explanation. “I’m helping to finalise the sponsorship deal. All done and dusted, really, but I’ve convinced the Sheriff and his merchant mates to add another clause. Your man navigator over there will be bounden and holden to bring all the Atlantic spoils back solely through the Port of Bristol.”

His brows rose. “All of them?” The amount of wealth that would divert from vested interests in London and bring to this upstart city was...well, it was likely the reason Crowley’s mischievous grin was back.

“Oh come on, angel.”

“The long-term effects—”

“He’s off to discover a whole new continent, and you’re worried about regional economic development? What happened to all your ‘O Crowley, isn’t it marvellous, the world’s coming here’?”

“Hmm.”

“With a bit of ready flowing in, they’ll invest in infrastructure. What’s not to love about infrastructure? You love infrastructure.”

He found his resolve wavering in the face of demonic logic and the promise of decent plumbing. This had the hallmarks of a cheeky add-on. Why would Crowley limit his shady side-projects when he could run two? He wouldn’t have even known about it if Crowley hadn’t been at this pub. Besides, he told himself, the more avaricious interest in the voyage, the more it would keep things…mercantile. And that would be best for everyone, really.

“Ineffable,” he muttered, and most definitely did not look at the demon. He said curtly, “Fine. Interfere in the negotiations. But I’ll expect reciprocity at a future point.”

“It would be my pleasure, Master Fell,” Crowley said. “To reciprocate. At _your_ pleasure, of course.”

He ignored the evident amusement through sheer force of will. Instead, he inclined his head to Amarke and heard himself say, “Crow’s counsel leaves good currency on the table, sir; you should also demand that they name everything they find after you.”

Beside him, Crowley burst into startled laughter, and Aziraphale left them to it. He was only a few steps away from Cabot’s table when some rather watery-looking wine was thrust into his hands.

“Your cups to raise up,” pronounced a red-cheeked and breathless gentleman. “Friar’s going to say a few words to make sure we don’t run aground before we leave the Avonmouth.”

The Friar was clearly intoxicated, but genuinely gladsome in his rendering of the mariner’s psalm. Those gathered chimed along where it mattered: down to the sea in ships, and wondrous works in the deep.

Aziraphale’s sunken spirits buoyed; in that moment of good faith and good company, his ship rode calmly and anything seemed possible.

### Authors' Notes

 **Brigstow  
** Bristol (from 'Brigstow' 'Place of the Bridge') has a long and storied history: from Iron Age forts and Roman encampments, to Knights Templar and slave merchants, to explorers and ship yards, bus boycotts, Banksy, and craft ale. The tavern in which our friends meet is on the [Bridge](https://www.buildinghistory.org/bristol/bridge.shtml) (sadly no longer).

 **John Cabot and the _Mattea_  
** A total chancer who was the first European to 'discover' North America (discounting the Norwegians, of course). Today, you can sail a replica of his ship [the Matthew](https://matthew.co.uk%20) in Bristol's Floating Harbour. When she moves, she looks like she's lifting her skirts to hurry through the water. ****

 **Cheddar  
** West Country cheddar comes from the OG village of Cheddar, Somerset. Good bacteria in those caves because it's very humid; nice National Trust walk over the Gorge too. ****

 **Glastonbury Isle  
** The floodplains of Somerset were home to the Tor, and the mythic kingdom of Avalon. Nowadays there's a lot of purple and crystals, but the hike to [the top of the old hill](https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/glastonbury-tor) will always be glorious. Don't worry, we'll return to Somerset. ****

 **Hy-Brasil  
** Irish myth. The island is said to be only visible [every seven years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brasil_\(mythical_island\)). ****

 **Mariner's Psalm  
** Some good lines in [Psalm 107](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+107%3A23-32&version=KJV), very appropriate for blessing watery endeavours.

 **Sheriff Amarke**  
"One of [Cabot's] main backers was the [Sheriff of Bristol](http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/articles/2006/12/06/cabot_feature.shtml), Richard Amarke, who sought reward for his patronage by asking that any new-found lands should be named after him."

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 3

[Wade in the Water](https://open.spotify.com/track/35FFI500qvGH47AmsphFcy?si=7Pzx4kjPSYWv_QLqSo5VtA)  
The Rigs

[Here's a Health to the Company](https://open.spotify.com/track/5HeBfxEJ9GFD6gghw1r67J?si=qKIU9pwkRG-VXW_qKyrTUw)  
The Chieftains

#### Perfume

[Sel Marin, by Heeley](https://www.jamesheeley.com/en/eau-de-parfum/24-sel-marin.html)  
Brigstowe Tavern, above the tidal brine of the River Avon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/616444334132297728/planning-permission). In which, we recount our inspiration to start writing this story.


	4. Oxford & Soho, September

It was September, and even in central London the air had a delightful crispness.

(“Good thing too,” Crowley had scoffed the evening before. “Nothing worse than a trip to Oxford when it’s damp. Which is _always._ ”

“Oh hush.”) 

Ravi slowed the car to the kerb outside the boutique Bloomsbury hotel where Anathema had set up her base. The waiting minicab drivers gave them a disgruntled blare of horns, breaking into their conversation putting the economics of the NHS to rights. In all his years on Earth Aziraphale had found no opinions as complicated as those from health professionals. Retirement from dentistry had not suited his friend, who missed having a captive audience to natter at.

“I’ll lend a hand with her suitcase,” said Aziraphale. 

Ravi chuckled as Aziraphale got out of the car to open the back door. “Hope that’s not for the auction loot. Remember I’m bringing boxes back too if you’re both bidding up large this afternoon.”

Anathema’s suitcase was neatly trimmed with indigo plaid to match her satchel. Her usually-loose hair was in an orderly twist. “Hi AZ.” She passed him the case while she got in the car. “Thanks—hey Ravi, nice to see you.”

Aziraphale sighed. Yes, Anathema was American; yes, he had put A.Z. Fell & Co in gold letters over the bookshop two hundred years ago; yes, one accumulated any number of nicknames over the course of human history; no, _ay-zee_ was not his favourite.

“I see we’re back in benevolent heiress mode this week?” He twisted back to look her up and down as Ravi pulled the car away. To the inexpert eye Anathema looked like any other history scholar in a jumper and pleated skirt, but to a trained Alumni Fund Liaison Officer eye the jumper was cashmere, the skirt was silk, and the brogues handmade.

“Wolfson College,” she said, “It’s kinda out of town but there’s such gorgeous grounds on the river. Graduates only and it’s 1960s architecture so I have high hopes for the water pressure.”

“How long are you staying on?” asked Ravi.

In the mirror, he saw Anathema look briefly uncertain before her hands dipped into her satchel. Then with a grimace she set the bag down on the floor and gave Ravi a shrug and a smile.

Reaching for her book of prophecies for the answers, Aziraphale realised; a hard habit to break despite the most strenuous of intentions. He sympathised. After all, the past ten years had been an exercise in stretching past one’s long-established limits, particularly when it came to a certain demon and his increasingly consistent proximity. What would once have felt like unimaginable liberties were now very tasty barbecues. They had yet to explicitly speak about it, though he couldn’t imagine what they could possibly say.

“Ravi, would you mind dropping me off at the college after Mallams, please?”

“After lunch?” Aziraphale said as Ravi nodded at them. “The Trout’s gone all celebrity but there’s a nice place by Iffley Lock.”

“Yes, _please_.” Anathema picked up the auction catalogue Aziraphale had left on the seat for her. “I think I might need sustenance after forty lots of old oak furniture. No wonder Crowley isn’t chauffeur—no offence, Ravi, you know I feel much safer in your SUV than with that speed demon.”

“None taken, love. I was off to help my auntie out Headington anyhow and your boss here couldn’t get that bloke of his to come within five miles of Oxford if he tried.”

There were a number of propositions in that statement that needed nuance, including how Ravi had first met Astoreth rather than Anthony, but Aziraphale just addressed the most glaring.

“Two miles without Merton College is the rule,” he said to Anathema’s enquiring look. “Oh, Crowley fell out with some important people a _very_ long time ago, but mostly it’s because, I quote, ‘Oxford is an overcrowded hovel full of bores and bureaucracy, and I had enough of that from my former place of employment’. End quote.”

Anathema flipped open the catalogue to a listing, “I’m sure ‘A late George III fruitwood and iron toasting fork, circa 1820’ didn’t exactly help sell the day trip either.”

He glanced back at the lot description. Certainly not a magnificent find by any means, but he supposed having an apprentice meant he should encourage a certain professionalism. “I’m sure there’s a toasting fork collector out there who will be living their best life today, my dear.”

Anathema snorted. “Sure. I might bid on it to give them a thrill.”

“Don’t come crying to me if you end up paying through the nose for a pointy stick. Besides, I don’t want you distracted, it’s just before the lot I’ve come up for.” He motioned for her to turn a few pages. “Number 22.”

They slowed down as the traffic thickened onto the Westway and Ravi craned his head back for a quick look. “Better not be a banqueting table or something.”

“Why, is that something he’s tried to put in your car in the past?” Anathema teased.

Aziraphale looked sternly at Ravi. “It was an occasional table and it folded down neatly.”

“My friend Aziraphale, you take your time but once you’ve made up your mind there’s no such thing as waiting for delivery.”

He’d known Ravi for years now. Crowley had come back from Warlock’s dentist pouting that the good ones always retired and did Aziraphale have any theological debates lined up for a jocular Sikh, one was going spare. The problem with having long-term friendships was that even the mortal ones noted a few aberrancies over time, felt compelled to point them out, and to consult with local demons and witches as to other corroborating incidents. He did hope to have at least a few more years of Ravi’s gentle teasing. 

“Nothing that I don’t see fitting with the seats down,” he reassured Ravi, because three-dimensional space was inconsequential when you had a transcendental attitude.

“I’ve put in for the internship schemes.” Anathema was weighing up the merits of Sotheby’s over Bonhams. “Can I put you down as a referee? Do you actually have an email address?”

Aziraphale eyed the inspection room attendant, who then suddenly decided she needed a short break out in the stairwell.

“Quickly, budge up, I need to turn this over.” He gestured to the far end of a piece of oak moulding, deeply carved with acanthus leaves. Ah—there it was. _Thos Sympson_ , branded into the flat side. He set the piece down with its clutch of friends and beamed.

Delightful. Surely a perfect match.

“I’ll let you bask in your moment with your planks, shall I?” Anathema said, bemusement clear, but then, _she_ hadn’t waited three centuries to mend furniture. 

They made their way through to the auction room itself to take seats near the back.

“Not Sotheby’s. They’re a bunch of rascals, make sure to retract your application,” he instructed as they settled. “I won’t have you working for them.”

“AZ, do you have any actual twenty-first-century objections to their business practices?”

“My nineteenth-century objections are quite enough to be getting on with,” he said darkly. “Christie’s if you must, but you’d go further at one of the smaller houses to begin with. There’s Lyons; Edinburgh’s quite habitable now, I’m told—oh, yes, come through—”

“Excuse me, thanks,” mumbled two women, kneeing their way in front along the crowded row of seats. The auctioneer was opening the proceedings and chatter fell to a low hum. 

Anathema tugged off her gloves and placed them on her lap, whispering. “Auctions are only one option, anyhow. It’s strange. Good strange. Wonderful to have choices about what to do with my life.” Her expression was contented. “Option B is the Jardine Fellowship. You need to write me a reference for that, too, so the email question still stands.”

“Shush,” Aziraphale smiled, “we’re starting.”

The bidding was tame, and it was only a Queen Anne cupboard that got past the reserve in the first half hour. He was happy to let Anathema’s musings interject his own, which swerved too quickly from the pleasant (Crowley murmuring Latin on the sofa late at night, deeply engrossed in his _Flora Londinensis_ ) to the disquiet they’d both felt in the wake of Sereniel’s visit. By lot six, he’d learned from Anathema that Option C was learning to crew a schooner (“there’s a collective, they’re doing zero-carbon olive oil imports from Portugal”), and Option D was hiking Patagonia to Cape Horn (“no email needed, just lurk on the demon’s Instagram and you’ll keep up”). 

She had sent the Pulsifer lad packing quite smartly. Even Aziraphale, who thought that you never could predict in matters of the heart, had seen that as a liaison of limited sustainability. But there had been no ill-feeling. She explained that she was grateful to Newt for pointing out she had a choice _not_ to be a descendant. She could live a life determined only by her own actions and not those of her sixteenth-century ancestor.

It was a sentiment that Aziraphale thought he might relate to these days. What one did with that sentiment was, well. It was easier to shepherd Anathema in her joyful new world. Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, et cetera.

Bids were open on the toasting fork. “Option E is a hostile takeover of your shop,” she said, bumping him meaningfully as she raised her number to the auctioneer.

He was no stranger to an ambitious student, but in two hundred years that was possibly the most brazen overture he’d had. Time was he might have bristled, custodial hackles raised. Now he just laughed.

“Very good, dear. Slightly miffed how far down the priorities I stand. Watch that gent over there,” he pointed out, “he’s going to leap in—yes, there we are, mind how you go. Oh, he’s a terrier, he wants that fork.”

In the end he had his prize, Anathema clearly agog when the bidding went into multiple hundreds. But she paddled back in on the next lot—a collection of wooden curios, circa 1730—determined and shrewd, and made a little noise of satisfaction when the hammer went down to her liking.

Witches were more Crowley’s people, it was true, but he’d met enough in his time to know they couldn’t possibly pass by a spinning top and a set of carved-oak knucklebones.

“Lot 22,” began the auctioneer, and Aziraphale cast an eye around for signs of interest. 

“A collection of nine carved oak facings from the late 1600s. Handsomely decorated in an acanthus pattern, three bearing the stamp of Thomas Sympson, London carpenter.”

A fair-haired woman sat up alert in the front row, and Aziraphale couldn’t stop his audible sound of exasperation. Anathema asked who it was.

“Cambridge. Librarian from Magdalene College,” he glowered. “If they want to gamble their little endowment unnecessarily that’s their own lookout.” He raised his number as soon as the bid opened, smiling cheerily when the librarian turned around, her face dismayed at the competition on an obscure pile of planks.

“Happy now?” Anathema asked afterwards as he kept a watchful eye on the bubble-wrapping process. 

She was one to talk, cradling her own box of bric-a-brac with a vigilance he recognised. They’d stayed for the book session, more for Anathema to make judgements on what various volumes might sell for than any desire to acquire stock. 

“We’ll see when they’re _in situ_ ,” Aziraphale said, allowing the tiniest uncertainty that he had the pattern wrong. They would still look well with the bookshelves, even if not a perfect match but—he’d know. The perils of atomic-level perception.

He must have said the latter out loud, because Anathema shook her head sadly.

“You’re a tyrant. So picky. I’m never actually working _for_ you, please realise that. I might depose you after you’ve taught me everything you know, or we can be friends, but don’t think I’m going to be the Saturday girl. You would be the worst boss in the world.”

“Worst boss in the world wouldn’t treat you to lunch,” he said. Why his companions chose over-exaggeration to best express themselves was a mystery. “And we’ll see. Hmm, that was a little nerve-wracking, though. Pie and a pint?” 

“This is what I don’t understand,” Anathema gestured around as they slipped into a quiet corner nook conveniently come free at the window. “Popular pub. No matter that it’s rammed, you’ve got us a nice lunch spot. So why not arrange everything how you like? Magic up those planks out of the aether, even. Why bother, when you don’t have to?”

Not for the first time Aziraphale recalled Crowley, sooty and slumped against Anathema’s kitchen table in the wake of his exertions at the airfield. Fatigue was too human, too _physical_ , a concept. To let the miraculous gifts of Heaven and Hell ebb at low tide was one thing, but their depletion brought cold dread, a fear that the thread could snap—

But the girl was merely curious. She didn’t need the full existential account. 

“You know, there was a time I really overdid it with the miracles,” he said, the business with Cabot’s journey popping back into his head. He’d found the memory again during his re-cataloguing. It had been discomfiting to remember how confused he’d been that he and Crowley had been working to the same directive, but that hadn’t been why he’d hidden it away. No, his written account scrawled across the dog-eared abolitionist’s handbill told its own tale well enough. 

“Blessings to carry a ship and crew long distance, triple-underlined warranty. Six weeks of shifting the weather patterns in the Atlantic takes it out of you! Big assignment from Above, had to do one’s best. Crowley was lurking around too because his lot were also keen on it.” He picked up his cutlery as they were served their pie and mash, digging emphatically into the pastry. “It’s effortful. And it’s not a good idea to run out of steam when you might need to thwart a wile.”

“Ooh, thwarting. Details needed.”

Aziraphale didn’t intend to share that the main drama had centered around Crowley helping the tavern mistress to lug a weary angel’s corporation to an upstairs chamber that smelt of old boots, so he took the high road. “You are borderline impertinent.”

“I like it when you tell me stories of ye olden times, AZ. When was this? Come on, it must be nice to share with someone new. Hah, don’t hide that smile in your IPA, I’m a witch, I can see through craft beer.”

“Fourteen nineties,” he sighed. “Not so long ago, really.”

“How old _are_ you,” Anathema asked, with a look of intense mental gymnasticating. “Were you around at the Beginning? When was the Beginning? Can you hear the capital letters, because they’re there.”

“Loud and clear,” he said, “as they should be.”

“So there was a Beginning.”

“Oh yes, I believe the clever astronomers even have a baby picture of the universe now.”

Anathema stabbed a chip into mayonnaise. “You’re not thirteen billion years old.”

“Good heavens no. Four at the most.” Aziraphale frowned. It was taxing to think about this corporeally, with the meagre resources of human neurons, but he was hardly well-placed for evoking another plane of existence in the middle of the pub. Anathema would probably just take notes but the screaming from the other patrons might ruin the ambience. 

“You said Archbishop Ussher wasn’t far off,” she narrowed her eyes. “4004 BC?”

“The first four years of the Earth’s creation were metaphorical, my dear. Even the Almighty has to let a molten core cool down first.” He pointedly doused his own chips with vinegar. Americans. “Time worked differently in those days.”

“But all this,” he gestured to his human form, “is only a few thousand years old. I’m a millennial, you see.”

“Ugh,” she groaned. 

Aziraphale left Anathema waiting outside Mallams with her suitcase and a strict warning not to speak to strange angels wearing sports clothing. While Ravi motored her off out to Wolfson, he’d have time for his other errand.

Setting off for the Broad, the late-summer tourists navigating around him, he pondered a suitably acclamatory letter of reference. Anathema was beyond clever and qualified for auction collections; frankly, she wouldn’t need even the most mundane patronage to secure a role. She’d turned up with the spring in Soho, taken an assessing circuit around the bookshop and produced Agnes’ prophecies as a starting point for bartering her apprenticeship. Crowley might be incredulous, but Aziraphale had plenty of experience with aspiring antiquarians and occultists both and knew how to handle himself, thank you kindly. 

She provoked his increasing fondness. He was struck by how she’d marched clear-eyed towards the afternoon where her world had collapsed to a singularity. She’d watched it expand out again, a new start, but she hadn’t thought to change herself in any essentials. Her options A through J—it had been a long lunch—were an experiment to see where she might fit in the world. Behold, said the descendant of fortune-tellers, I will do a new thing!

And it felt serendipitous, he realised, to be questioned on the mechanics of divinity and of purpose, as he came to terms with the facts of retirement—no, not retirement, they were _emeritus_. Details he’d never considered, memories he’d not revisited: a mortal, uncomplicated perspective was helpful. He’d told Anathema about Bristol. (“And because of that—invasion, and disease, and the most beastly slavery.”) She’d shrugged, reminded him that she was trained in the _nouvelle histoire_ tradition and maybe one person shouldn’t take all the credit for major world events. 

And Glyndebourne, also on his mind, and another mortal perspective: “Sounds like your grandfather’s friend had unreasonably high expectations,” Ravi had said as they sped through the Chilterns that morning. “No single soldier was ever that important in a war.”

The porter at Wadham College waved him in, certain that the cheery man in the cable jumper was a Senior Fellow returned from sabbatical. Technically it was true, though it was a couple of generations since he had rooms here. He’d last taken a lectureship for a whirl in the mid-seventies when women were finally admitted. Not his most carefree stint as an academic: students wanted tutorials even when they were ringing the cultural changes.

Anathema was considering that history fellowship. Could _he_ do this again? Sometimes he missed the tailored robes. High Table too, but Crowley was right, Oxford was a damp little burgh. Not even quality port could keep out the chill.

Slowing his step, he ducked in the Hall with a charitable nod at the founder’s portrait and a reflexive scowl at Christopher Wren. Back in the day, Crowley had swanned about a great deal with that lot—Wren, Boyle, Hooke—when they’d pitched up in London and started their natural philosophy club. But they had all been on the insufferable side of cerebral. A five-hour Royal Society debate on load-bearing beams finally did for him, and Aziraphale had found much more conviviality with Evelyn and Pepys. Dear old sods. 

A ping on his pocket telephone meant Ravi was on his way back, and he shook himself to get to the library. Places like this, where he’d spent a human life or three when all was added up, made it easy to meander in memory. And memory—another he’d set aside like Glyndebourne and Cabot, in the margins of a little blue cloth-bound volume—was the errand. 

At Creation, he was forged to stand guard, to look out for trouble with his flaming sword in hand. But there the Divine had left off. In the ensuing millennia he’d had to come up with follow-through and purpose to fit the circumstances. Were these put-aside memories really the trouble he’d thought? 

Time gave perspective. His human friends, even with their brief moments upon the earth...they turned the glass to show a different hue. And he, self-made Principality, on the side of a _demon_ whose hand he’d held fast a thousand years ago and only last week, found he was no longer afraid of what he might find.

* * *

By the time they’d turned off the Euston Rd and Ravi dropped Aziraphale at the bookshop, he had marshaled a more orderly confederate of his thoughts. Threads and strands, while not woven in place, suggested to him an outline of new possibilities. A plan for the future. He paused outside the bookshop, its frontage unchanged save a little wear and tear on the lettering. Two hundred years and counting, as the city sped up around him, as the world kept on coming to London. And what had _he_ done? Slowed his pace. Such a solid rationale for such a convenient long time, to be at the epicentre of it all. And now, to be on this little island while it unscrewed its own bridges and to find he didn’t quite understand so much about it, about himself. But if he were to take himself out, to be amongst the people? To feel certainty again, in what it meant to be a Principality. Perhaps that was what he needed. 

With only a sliver of attention to the door as it rattled open, he hoisted the wrapped bundle of oak treasure inside. He laid it next to the bookcases, and—ah, but Crowley was upstairs. 

Upstairs, and more than his usual self. Even a human would sense the local barometric upheaval, a conflation of infinite space in a finite Georgian shopfront. Shifts in gravity were the telltale sign that their ex-colleagues were roundabouts, but this was all singularly familiar, and that was even before the smell of Sorrento lemons wafted downstairs.

Aziraphale tucked the little book he’d retrieved into a desk compartment: the past could wait. The balustrade was warm to the touch, the air sultry as he climbed to the workroom. He had a mild reprimand at the ready, an appeal to keep the humidity constant for the sake of the books, but it didn’t eventuate.

Crowley was humming along with his headphones; melody and harmony at the same time—because what was the point of a corporation with two lungs if you couldn’t learn to control them separately? He couldn’t place the tune but it was no doubt one of those local lasses Crowley was recently enamoured of, Kate or Polly something. There was a bowl of half-eaten lemons balanced at the edge of the drawing board. 

One of Crowley’s wings was propped up on the window ledge in a slouch mirroring his habitual perching elbow. The other swept across the floor in a drape of blue-black vanity, their high shine a tell that more than sketching had gone on in the workroom that afternoon.

Righteousness aside, angels were not predisposed to flashes of sudden emotion. But countless lifetimes with humans, with their quick leaps to joy, and anger, and sorrow—not to mention a demon with a lot of facial expressions his glasses couldn’t conceal—and Aziraphale had picked up some habits. 

An appallingly provocative sense of contentment washed over him. Crowley let himself in often enough. Stashed his treasures and trinkets in the cellars. Gave up things of himself to help reinforce the wards and make the place safe. But here he was, dross of a groom scattered across the floor alongside a pile of sketches for his covert-but-not-really (for-heaven’s-sake-I-have-eyes, many-if-you-recall) garden design. At ease, there in Aziraphale’s place. 

Frustration chased his contentment. Not two minutes ago and he’d been contemplating his need to get out of the city, to get away. Thousands of years with one another and still they were always one step ahead, one step behind. He shut his eyes to head off those thoughts, opened them again on the altogether more material fact of Crowley’s feathers brushing the dark floorboards, back and forth on the rhythm of his hum.

“Hello, angel,” Crowley looked up, grinned, a little nostril flare. “You’re all damp wool and bicycle grease.”

“I’ve been up—”

“—of course, Oxford, there’s a top note of derision.” 

“You’ll note I didn’t ask you to come along, being considerate of your feelings. While we’re on the theme, this whole shop smells of lemons and intergalactic plasma.” Crowley’s bespoke breach into another plane didn’t simply raise the air pressure. It stretched soft tendrils out around Aziraphale’s ankles, snuck up behind the shell of his ear, blurred his vision without permission. It was rampant. 

In answer, Crowley rolled his shoulders back and tidied in the excess dimensionality that his wings had spread around the workroom. He proffered the plate in Aziraphale’s direction with a slow blink.

“Want one?” He bit into half a lemon.

Aziraphale winced at the extremism of the demon’s taste buds. Last year it’d been chilli; at least the lemons smelled good.

“I have some things to do for a while. In the map room.” Without thinking, he bent to pick up a feather. The opalescence was fading, but warmth prickled up into his finger joints.

“No stealing for barbeques,” Crowley warned.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He placed the feather on a neutral shelf, looked at it and not at Crowley as it dimmed, knew that Crowley was watching him even as he heard the rasp of marker on paper. 

Aziraphale looked up, not quite certain what his face might be showing, fell back on:

“Shall we have tea later?” 

Crowley jammed on his headphones and rolled his eyes, but it was fond, he thought.

Rivers and mountains etched on animal tusks had been impressive some millennia ago, especially so when the humans carving them had just worked out they could put their leftover peas in the ground to get more the next year. Each human cartographic invention had left Aziraphale beaming with admiration: recording and transmitting knowledge of their surroundings. So very clever, but he did admit it was a long wait from the first dots on a rock to a nice Phoenician papyri. 

Maps were notoriously fiddly as a business prospect, though even fiddlier if you weren’t actually interested in business. They had to be stored then rolled, or not rolled, and people insisted on drawing landscapes on all manner of skins and bark and back pages of the _Rochdale Observer_. So the map room was limited in stock to extreme rarities and maps with spiritually-questionable bearings, and limited in access to By Appointment Only. As a general rule, No Appointments Remained. 

He kept the room cloistered primarily because it housed his own Map. It didn’t have a name. The extent of its reach had changed over the centuries, in the nature of a Principality’s domain. What started as a folded lambskin covering the Old World became a papyrus centred on Jerusalem, narrowing to a Gregorian parchment where all roads converged on Canterbury. He’d hand-drawn each instance himself up until the day he’d met a Major Colby in charge of the Ordnance Survey. From then on, floor-to-ceiling OS 1:25000 had done the job nicely. Crowley made occasional snarky remarks about the superiority of GPS and GIS. Aziraphale told him to kindly GFO and savoured the shock on his friend’s face.

They’d quarrelled about this map plenty in the past.

(“What if someone in your Head Office decides to cross-reference things? Sees this, puts two and two together and works out you couldn’t have been in Aberystwyth in the morning and Grimsby for lunch without a miracle.”

“Listen to yourself, Crowley,” he tutted, “My folk had nothing to do with indexing, as you well know. ‘Cross-referencing’ indeed. The very notion is anti-ineffable.”

Crowley jabbed at the Midlands. “Huh. Think of how humiliating it is for me to be reminded of all of the inspirational speeches you had me deliver in Stoke-on-Trent.”

Aziraphale peered back at the mid eighteenth century. “Oh, the Chartists! Yes, they were _terrible_ working conditions—”

“I _know,_ angel, I took quite some professional pride in the industrial revolution and bringing about dark satanic mills in the first place, clue’s in the name—”)

Pleasantly, they’d not bickered over Aziraphale’s record-keeping since the end days. Post-Armageddon chill, the demon called it.

He turned the crank to be eye-level with Dartmoor. The West Country had been on his mind since the Bristol doings had resurfaced; Devon and Cornwall reaching out into the Atlantic, the folk there mocked as bumpkins and keeping all the good cheese in retaliation. Goodness left an uneven terrain on his map here, notwithstanding demography: he’d not kept a balanced spread on blessings even when he had been given a free hand by Above.

Winching northerly, he grimaced at the overwhelming concentration of his past deeds in London and the shameful ignorance of Birmingham. Little pockets of activity told stories of history, but they also told stories of how the Principality quite liked proximity to a decent pub, and if possible, a local theatre company. The newspaper headlines of late made accusations that “real people” weren’t listened to by politicians, that the capital lured the talent of the nation and kept the spoils. Aziraphale couldn’t remember the last time he’d visited Sheffield. 

North again. The adhesive keeping the Borders to Northumberland sadly coming unstuck; he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He paused on Lindisfarne. 

He had accompanied countless pilgrims on their journeys down the centuries, many of them heading to the Holy Island, following St Cuthbert’s path. Sometimes he’d been lighting the way for those forging the route the first time, other times he’d been an advocate, a spiritual water station for others treading in well-worn footsteps. One never knew the ineffable consequences of such journeys, but one hoped, one could only hope, that they furthered Her plan. 

He had always wondered if She had forethought the ineffability of his and Crowley’s Arrangement, forged on a treaty field in the dripping wet aftermath of torrential rain. They told themselves—and each other—that their settlement was simple convenience, but ultimately they’d brought a sort of a balance, one rooted in simple human basics and not some abstract harmonic order.

Aziraphale pulled the grid square of the Holy Island towards him. The map stretched its suspended concertina back in time. Systematic Ordnance Survey gave way to sea charts and local maps in the eighteenth century. The detail simplified as paper became medieval sketches on parchment, and finally—attached to the lambskin—his own cartographic efforts in the wake of the Gregorian mission of the seventh century. He’d sketched it on the journey from Kent to the north, trailing the abbots and monks who had led the mass conversions of Anglo-Saxons. Some had been buoyed in faith, some found their zeal tempered by the Brittonic clime. Over a quiet decade in the 630s he had split his time between learning fancy manuscript illumination and encouraging King Oswald to build a monastery on the mount. His map still looked beautiful, even if the gold leaf flaked off and the greens oxidised to brown if he didn’t keep an eye on the aging process. 

There was a memory on Lindisfarne. An early one, earlier than the Arrangement, a bump of space-time between ink and parchment. He gently pressed the layers back, but it sat there, uncomfortable, like the pea under the mattress.

Another in Suffolk, lying in the marshes. Near the town that fell into the sea, once bustling full of herring merchants and marvellous choirs.

He turned the crank slowly. Lost track of the afternoon as he wandered country and time. Places without his own hidden memories but sparking them anyhow. Like that lovely grove of ash trees in Snowdonia where he’d worn through his boots, digging the tough ground for saplings when the artist had been too overwhelmed by his uncertainty about the future. A true act of faith, no matter that the belief was not in Her but in nature. Yet, for shame, he’d never been back to see them grown tall.

He skirted his gaze off London as he meandered; after some time, he circled back. He knew London, from the scuffed arrivals hall at Heathrow to twelve-feet-under plague pits. The great beauty of London was that all of humanity had passed through, ever since it had been naught but a suburb of Rome. An angel could carry out all but the most specifically regional tasks of Heaven just in the W1 postcode.

But it was time to stretch his wings.

Crowley had tucked his own away when he appeared, lounging in the doorway, best-china cup of tea in one hand and a generous whisky tumbler in the other. There was a smudge of brick dust on his cheek of unmistakable provenance, and Aziraphale liked the notion Crowley had been puttering about in the cellars amongst his souvenirs and seedbank, tending to his projects.

What projects? Don’t ask, don’t tell. Their plausible deniability was an impulse it might take another thousand years to dismantle.

Or maybe not. 

“I’m going,” he said firmly, “to go. Out.”

“I should hope so?” Crowley said. “You’ve been holed up in here since Tuesday. Must be parched.” He rattled the cup and saucer.

“That’s very kind,” Aziraphale took the tea, momentarily diverted from his resolution on the realisation he was indeed gagging for a cuppa. He held it out with a meaningful nod at the whisky. “Tuesday. Gosh.”

Crowley shook his head, smiling, but he tipped a respectable dram in the tea and slugged back the rest. “Young Device rang up and asked for your email address, said it was urgent, so I gave her one of mine.“

“Oh bother, yes, I forgot and left my pocket telephone downstairs.“

“Mmm. Where it blared _Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel_ constantly for two hours yesterday evening. I’m going to dismember whoever taught you to change your ringtone.”

“You’ve been here all this time?”

Crowley looked shifty.

“Of course I don’t _mind_.”

“Just sorting some bits and bobs. And your hammock on the roof is well comfy.”

Aziraphale took a gulp of his own tea at that, because it was one thing for Crowley to make himself metaphysically comfortable all over the workroom and quite another to kip in a chap’s hammock. 

“I shall—I’ll ring Anathema, sort things out.” He put the teacup aside, wondering what else he’d neglected as he’d been engrossed in his mental journey. What else _Crowley_ had been doing. ‘Bits and bobs’. He wasn’t being terribly subtle about this garden project. Reading about grass roofs. RHS Chelsea catalogues turning up at the shop. The herbarium cases stacked in the workroom. 

Trying to break habits was a good thing, but it felt very forward to simply _ask_. That was Crowley’s role, his gift: to conjecture, to pose suppositions, to wheedle information out of all and sundry without so much as a question mark. 

“Eh, she’s all fine.” Crowley waved his hand and came into the room, bouncing the empty glass from hand to hand as he ambled up to the map. “Ah, the landscape of beneficence, still going strong.” 

Aziraphale observed him outline the south coast with trailing fingers, drawing from Southampton around to Eastbourne, sweeping up to London and circling it—

“Please don’t make that awful Great Beast incantation just because you like your motorway.”

“Oops, my bad, force of habit,” Crowley stopped his tracing of the M25 and twisted around on his heels. “Soooo, angel. Those planks downstairs.”

“Oh yes, isn’t it marvellous, they match my bookcases!”

“Of course they match,” Crowley scoffed, “they’re the pieces you couldn’t prise off the wall when you made off with your dear Sam’s possessions in the dead of night.”

He bristled. “I’ve cared for them. _Much_ better than that Cambridge lot who let ragtag students yank the doors off their hinges for decades. And now I can fix them to the walls properly.”

Crowley turned back to the map. “Permanently,” he said, after a pause.

Aziraphale frowned, wondering at the demon’s tone and the slight hunch of his shoulders. “As permanent as anything, I suppose.”

“I did so well with Basildon,” Crowley murmured, tapping on Essex.

As he watched Crowley start to fall into his self-congratulatory reverie on commuter towns, the resolve he’d felt when the demon appeared in the doorway surged back. He was fed up with wondering: it was time to remove the pea from beneath the mattress.

“You know, Crowley, I have decided to go for a bit of a perambulation.”

### Authors' Notes

**Ash grove, Snowdonia  
** David Nash is a land artist and tree sculptor, and [Ash Dome](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/05/ash-dome-david-dash/) is a hidden grove of ash trees bent to form a dome in Wales. Sadly the trees are dying of ash dieback.

**Basildon  
** A satellite “new” town in Essex built for London workers. Often considered a bellwether constituency for general elections, with “Basildon man” traditionally having represented the typical working-class voter.

**Chartists  
** Mid 19th-century [movement for working-class suffrage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_Pottery_Riots), with particular strength coming from industrial centres. Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands was the hub of the Potteries, which shared grim working conditions alongside cotton mills and colleries.

_**Heaven Must Be Missin' An Angel  
**_ Aziraphale’s unrepentant love for this 1976 disco [“classic”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven_Must_Be_Missing_an_Angel) is an utter mystery to Crowley. Not so much in terms of why he likes it, but more in terms of where the blessed Heaven he heard it in the first place.

**Professor Lisa Jardine  
** Historian and interdisciplinary [scholar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Jardine), famous for wide-ranging work on the history of science and in particular the early modern period of British history where lots of juicy science took place. After her death both the UK and Dutch Royal Societies offered postdoctoral grants for history researchers in her name.

**Magdalene College, Cambridge  
** Not to be confused with Magdalen College Oxford: that one has the famous gargoyles, [this one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_College,_Cambridge) has an “e” and the Pepys Library (of which more see below). The authors have no insight into the size of Magdalene’s endowment but understand it’s how it’s used that counts.

**Mallam’s Auction House  
** A regional but still reputedly prestigious [auction house](https://www.mallams.co.uk/about-us/).

**Merton College, Oxford  
** The authors are not privy to the nature of the particular disagreement that brought about Crowley’s restraining order, but that sure is an objectionably man-heavy list of [famous alumni.](https://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/about/history-merton)

**Ordnance Survey Maps  
** Anyone who has ever set foot on a walk in the British countryside has likely encountered an [OS Explorer map](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance_Survey) and battled to refold it back into shape. The OS is the national mapping agency; it has a long and very interesting history.

**Sotheby’s  
** Along with Bonhams and Christies, one of the big old [auction houses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotheby%27s) for fine art, collectibles, jewellery etc. Why Aziraphale thinks they are rascals is beyond the scope of these notes but one of the authors used to work in the jewellery business and heard shady nonsense about Sotheby’s more than others.

**Thomas Sympson  
**[The carpenter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympson_the_Joiner) who made Samuel Pepys’ famous oak bookcases.

**Wadham College, Oxford  
**[An Oxford college](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadham_College,_Oxford) with a more obvious queer history than many others; whose alumni are tangentially relevant to the story; and in whose grim guest accommodation the authors wished they shelled out for a proper hotel.

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 4

[Season of the Witch](https://open.spotify.com/track/5DSi7heBC8eTIFROBvttnp?si=zO3MKbUeQ1e5eJq1gl80Sw)  
Lana Del Rey

[Out of Time](https://open.spotify.com/track/79PrPZu9zWyc1qwUwXchVl?si=vSLSRvaeRT2dlSVJw_eDdw)  
Blur

#### Perfume

[L’Air de Rien](https://www.millerharris.com/products/lair-de-rien-eau-de-parfum), by Miller Harris  
Aziraphale in Oxford: damp wool, old books

[Arancia di Capri](https://www.acquadiparma.com/en/gb/arancia-di-capri/ARANCIAEDTSPRAY.html), by Acqua di Parma  
Crowley's transcendental breach of sultry citrus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/616824804958502912/planning-permission). In which, we describe the importance of secondary characters to the story we’re telling.


	5. Clapham, 1703

Crowley stood in the gardens of Hewer’s house and watched the mist roll across Clapham Common. The hour was late. Night spread thickly in the countryside without a thousand candles to disrupt its flow, and any warmth that remained from the day had been stolen away by the rising damp. It would no doubt be considered unpleasant had she allowed it; for the benefit of anyone watching from the windows she pulled at the edges of her mantua and indulged in a practiced shiver.

These days it was all the rage to come to Clapham and retire from the city. She’d grudgingly admit that she could see why. High position, clear air. Villas and pleasure gardens encroaching on the common pastures and woodlands. A regular stagecoach from the city itself. A shame that the evening was so smoky; it was so long since she’d seen her stars. Although her London circle of acquaintance gave access to all the finest technology through which to view the firmament, the constant fug of coal smoke was abominable. Truly it was a wonder that any recent progress had been made in astronomy. On this blessed isle it had to be more of a credit to imagination than actual observation.

With the skies stubborn that night, the appeal of the place was earth-bound. At the treeline south of the garden, birds chattered softly to each other, their sleepy sounds carrying above the steady creak of the windmill. She raised her black veil. Even then she couldn’t see further than the blockish mill rising on its hillock, the highest point on these lands. No, not a hillock, but a mound—a burial barrow of a long-passed people. With a slow blink she adjusted her sight and took in the signs of life amidst that entropy. Little pulses of rodent heat darting across the earth. The bright-hot pump of a predator’s heart in diving pursuit. 

The night was alive with motion. Crowley’s own blood ran high to see it. For the briefest moment she entertained the lure of a transformation: to let herself slide down through the grasses, through the gravel pits, and to curl in the undergrowth to catch a vole of her own. She laughed, letting her high humour hiss and snap through the garden as she stood there enjoying it all. 

Behind her, overhead, came the bang of a shutter. Light flooded out from the upper storey, and she winced her eyes shut, dropping the veil back into place. When she could finally glare up at the offending window, she saw a silhouette, framed, back to the garden. An unfashionable silhouette too: no wig, the voluminous sleeves of a cassock. The light streamed down into the garden before her, re-creating the picture as shadow, and the round window-panes diffused a halo around ruffled curls.

Oh, so that was how it was going to be? Still so amused, but she did _try_ to shade her mirth down into a coughing sob when she realised that the door had opened. A waiting servant awkwardly shifted from foot to foot.

“Spare me a moment.” An emotional dab at her eyes with a lace handkerchief added appropriate drama. “Such happy memories here in Master Hewer’s beautiful garden at the twilight of my beloved friend’s days.”

She crossed the paved stones back to the house, pausing a moment at an absolutely _irresistible_ rose vine. It was early in the season, but at her murmured admonition a bud fattened and burst into cream-and-crimson glory. She glowered at the surrounding thorns until they shrank back in fright, then plucked the bloom.

“Were you yet wanting to visit with ‘im, Ma’am?”

She could hear in his voice that he hoped not, and also hoped so. His fingers clenched, no doubt around the coins she had passed him when she had gained entry. Oh, how delightful these boys were when they were new to a household. So eager to please, and their loyalties so untethered. There was more to pluck in this garden than flowers, but lucky for him, she’d grown bored of low-hanging fruit somewhere east of Eden.

“Indeed I am.” Crowley crossed the threshold of the house, trailing her fingertips across his knuckles as she passed. “There will be the same again for you,” she murmured, “once I have paid my final respects to Master Pepys.” 

The boy made the sort of face that offered both awed sympathy and the disbelief of the young that an attractive widow would ever dally with such a gouty old goat. She sympathised.

“The priest is upstairs, Mistress,” he offered, bolder now with the promise of more funds. “The family sent for him to stand watch before they left for London to make the arrangements. I’m sure he would pray with you. If you asked.”

“What a novel thought,” said Crowley, lifting her rose to inhale its spicy scent before setting it carefully at her breast. 

With the dead so recently departed—and Pepys so eminent a citizen notwithstanding his on-again-off-again relationship with the Crown—it was hardly surprising that there were arrangements to be made. And, more to the point, a will to be read. Granted, a little demonly intervention may have added to their haste off to town, but the roots of temptation only struck when the ground was already fertile.

Pepys had been living out his dotage here in Clapham, in the home of his former clerk William Hewer. The nephew had gone with Hewer, both of them reeking, to Crowley’s expert nose, of a heady mix of grief and avarice. She had viewed the will herself, of course. She always made sure to get a first peep in when the repercussions would be good. The usual amount of bequests and a pension for the long-time nurse-come-mistress; the young blood-relation inheriting the meat of the estate. There’d be tension there, but Hewer was canny and was sure to take his just reward.

Human affairs could be so deliciously sordid, particularly when it came to the helpless flail of mortality. And then there was the matter of the _mourning rings_. It was a pity she couldn’t be there when they discovered just how many of those Pepys had thought were necessary—for everyone from former colleagues, to the rich neighbours, to the shopkeeper around the corner, to his bookbinder’s apprentice. Such hubris was sure to be popular Downstairs.

“I asked that we not be disturbed. What do you need?”

They paused at the top of the stairs, arrested by the sharp questioning. The priest stood in the doorway, a stern expression fading suddenly into neutrality.

“Ah,” he said. “A visitor.” His eyes shone blue, even in the half-gloom of the hall.

Crowley inclined her head.

“My dear,” Aziraphale murmured, and the words rustled, soothing and provocative in equal measure, across her skin. “You are welcome.”

How long had it been? Decades, surely. In each other’s periphery, seen across the halls at various scientific meetings, or at court. Wiling, thwarting, gloating, grinning, not speaking, not drinking, not being. How long? Too long.

She pushed past the boy to take his hands in her own. Warmth against her garden-numb fingers and the jolting fizz of his touch twitched at her wings in the between-space.

“How relieved I am,” she exclaimed, “To know poor Samuel is now in the hands of the Angels.”

He seemed caught between laughter and indignation, which was how she preferred him. “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” he replied, cheeky bugger, and she dropped his hands quickly as the sincerity of the prayer buzzed through her bones.

Her indignant hiss was enough to scare off the servant boy, and she waited until the sound of footsteps receded on the stairs before shaking out the remaining static. 

Aziraphale said, “A widow come to pay her respects? How dramatic you are, Crowley.”

She lifted her veil and arranged it across her hair, giving him a melancholic sigh to rival the best of old Burbage’s boy players. “Not just any widow. A widow of fine reputation and desolate longing. O, woe! I am reconciled to cold nights and what might have been. He was never mine, nor mine to mourn. And yet, parting is such sweet—”

“Crowley!” He readjusted his embroidered stole into priestly alignment. “Please.” 

The angel’s stare was hard now, harder to bear now without the shield of her veil. Perhaps all the silent disagreements of their modern time, of natural philosophy and public health and civic design might have added up into a greater distance than she had realised. “He’s in the next room.”

Ah, or perhaps this too. She’d known they’d been well-acquainted, Pepys and Fell, but had forgotten that would mean Aziraphale would be mourning in his own way. How careless of her to have forgotten that. 

Crowley shifted on her slippered feet and peered past his broad shoulder, into the open doorway beyond. She caught a glimpse of bed curtains, and the bowed head of an older woman in a cook’s apron, sitting wake by the bed.

She nodded at the angel. “Pax, then.”

His gaze was wary as he nodded back. “Thank you.”

“Father?” The cook called to the doorway.

“Your pardon.” The angel’s sleeve brushed her arm as he moved to join the woman, disappearing into the bedroom.

It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him in vestments, of course. Ecclesiastical dress usually meant the angel was under a more direct form of Holy Orders; VIP interventions, or assignments that could brook no margin of error. Crowley usually kept right away from that sort of business. But here, in the house of a friend, Aziraphale’s surplice and cassock felt intensely personal. Whether it was costume or armour, Crowley couldn’t tell. Likely a little of each.

Without him right there beside her the atmosphere in the house seemed less gravid. Freed from his orbit, she crossed lightly to the door at the end of the hall and pushed it open.

The library of Samuel Pepys.

Oh, it was as promising as she’d hoped. The warmth of candlelight in sconces. A fine rug on the floorboards. A smattering of arm-chairs, and the sort of solid, immovable desk that befit a former secretary to the Admiralty. Pride of the place: beautiful wood-and-glass cases for the books. A dozen double-width examples of the finest custom joinery, barely containing the bounty of one of the most interesting private collections of the time.

She moved into the room, further from the ears of the household and closer to the fireplace and the desk with its piles of books. Crowley trailed a chilly-again fingertip across a binding. Fine leather, embossed, and the vellum a goodly weight. She could appreciate the craftsmanship. She could appreciate the contents more. Pepys had access to a _lot_ of secrets. He knew _everyone_ , and was a control freak who liked to keep records of all his dealings. All helpful qualities to a reconnoitering demon.

She wondered how many pleasant hours Aziraphale had spent here, reading in one of these chairs, his hair glowing in the sun through that west-facing casement. Perhaps he’d even helped to fill those cases: fitting the taller volumes in at the bottom and the smaller tomes stacked two deep and two high.

The door creaked. Aziraphale entered, looking tired, though she fancied his expression lightened upon seeing her yet there.

Crowley pitched her voice quiet. “Will you lead the funeral?” 

“I’ve helped arrange it. St Olave’s, Seething Lane. George Hickes will take the service. He was here with him at the end. A good man.”

“Wait—St Olave, you say? The church gate with the—?” She made a ghoulish face.

“Those skulls!” he agreed, “ _Mors mihi lucrum_ indeed!”

Leaning back against the desk, she grinned at him. “Never understood a _memento mori_ myself, not when they’re so—oh, sorry.”

“So fragile. So fleeting. It’s all right, my dear, you’re not wrong.” He smiled back at her, and the candles flickered and grew brighter. “They _are_ mortal. But Samuel lived enough for a half-dozen men. While I shall miss him, he has left much to remember him by.”

“Much indeed.” She slanted a glance at Aziraphale, who had moved over to examine the contents of one of the bookcases. He was genuinely grieving—she’d be rubbish at her job if she couldn’t feel that from across the room—but _books_ were the foundation of his friendship with Pepys. So he was here, back to guard the library, instead of lingering in the chamber next door. When the soul departed, human bodies were shabby, small things. Pepys’ library was a grand aspiration, lovingly outfitted, and despite his sadness, Aziraphale was at ease.

If there was cupidity in the way he regarded the shelves all around him, Crowley wasn’t going to say that out loud. 

She tapped her finger thoughtfully on the book atop the pile on the desktop. The book under her hand was one of Robert Hooke’s collections of lectures: _Mechanics_ , printed for the Royal Society. Members only, so of course Pepys had a copy. It would do for diverting the angel while she worked out where Pepys might have stashed his diaries. That was, after all, why she was here. 

She hefted open the book to endless pages on the mechanics of springs, but no complaint. Robert had been very clever and Crowley loved watches. Time! In an automaton the size of one’s hand—what a marvel. Immediately practical. It would be decades before anyone got something constructive out of bloody Newton’s _Principia Mathematica_. She said as much, waving the book at Aziraphale.

“Hmm.” The angel paused in his slow scanning of the top-most shelves, a layered timbre to the noise he made suggesting more than his mortal senses were employed. He too was looking for something, or she would eat her petticoat. “I’ll wager a favour that Isaac will be on the Royal Society Council within months.”

She couldn’t quite control her lip curl. Like poor old Robert, also recently departed, she was no devotee of Newton.

“Oh please,” Aziraphale said. “Don’t tell me you actually took that,” he nodded at Hooke’s book, “old codger’s side.”

She had, actually. She had questions, so many of them, and Robert had always quested for answers. He had been an embittered old shit, but she was a demon and only noticed his failings as a decent human when they’d got in the way of his work. 

“His mind,” she said. “Sometimes it’s the ideas that matter. Through the bile and the slag—it shone, that mind of his.” Crowley nudged her drooping veil, and replaced the book on the desk. “I’m not denying he was a miserly, miserable bastard. Chalk one up to the demonic influence I suppose. Another soul for my side.”

“While I won’t deny you’re good at your work, not everything is about you, demon. Sometimes a miserable, miserly bastard is simply that.”

“Aziraphale! Language!” That cheered her _right_ up.

There was the sound of movement in the corridor. Low voices.

“You might sit, Mistress,” Aziraphale said after a listening pause. “Grief is wearisome and the hour is late.”

She turned, and the angel had brought forth a chair. He patted the back and waited, his demeanour signalling pastoral care unless you knew what an opportunist he could be. 

“Our spirits need reviving?” She took the offered seat, sank back and craned her neck around as he took two goblets from a shelf.

“A restorative tonic.” Aziraphale blew dust out of the goblets and—by the smell of it when he handed one to Crowley—brandy in. “The cellars are quite depleted, I’m afraid. He was ill for some time and required much wine to ease the way.” He leaned back against a bookcase opposite her, strangely imposing from her angle. The black robes, it must be.

“To Master Pepys, then,” she said.

“Yes,” said Aziraphale. “To Samuel, a singular human.”

They drunk in a soft silence interrupted only by the distant chiming of the clock downstairs. “Pepys.” She paused. “You know where he’ll be.”

“Yes.” An impassive answer, as it should be. Both of them knew that there was an order to such things, and while they might push and pull it was always, _always,_ free will to the end.

“I’ll keep an eye out,” she said, feeling the impulse to offer and going with it. “Next time I’m Downstairs.” It wouldn’t be a hardship. Pepys was the sort to ingratiate, and even Crowley could be magnanimous and admit he’d been a damned fine administrator in life as well as a pickthank. Dagon was going to hate him much less than she hated most new recruits. 

“That’s very ki—yes. Alright. I would be much obliged.”

“Watch it, angel. Don’t want to end up owing me too much, you’ll already be in debt with your punt on Newton. He’s a crackbrain and he’ll not stand the test of time, I’ve told you before.”

“He’s a genius, and I’ll call in my favour when it suits me.”

A tentative rap at the door. Aziraphale passed over his goblet and took himself off to the chamber while the household changed shifts for the wake.

Crowley sprung up, briefly torn between finding Pepys’s memoirs and having a sift through the books the angel had been piling on a side cabinet. In his will, Pepys’ bequests ran long and varied, and no doubt Reverend Fell was mentioned for a volume or two in some supplementary note. But that temptation would need to wait: duty called.

The desk, so generous in proportions as to accommodate shelves down to the floor on each side, was as good a starting point as any. Ten years’ of diaries would be hard to miss. Pepys had documented one of Crowley’s favourite decades of all time. Plague, fire, the King back on the throne, any number of silly trade wars with the Dutch—and that was just London! Pepys had stopped his journals—eyesight, apparently—but to be fair, it had all run on much quieter after that. Even Crowley, who’d been occupied with chaos in the offices of the King’s Surveyor of Works, took time off for a few years. Expeditioning for plants was great fun, and a great means of ingratiation with the Duchess of Beaufort, who in turn lived next door to Hans Sloane, a rich young doctor who Pepys had taken to borrowing books from for months on end. That was how Crowley found out that the diaries were a bit more than dull accounts of naval administration. 

Nothing in the desk. She polished off the rest of the brandy, straightened the rose in her bodice, and considered the options. Aziraphale was clearly intimate with the contents of the library. He could probably reel off the volumes in order along the shelves, the way he’d been intently Looking. Bloody angel. Vibrating with too much optick. Made her feel hot and bothered in the ethereal bits. 

She glanced back at Hooke’s book. “You were bang-on with the light wave thing, matey. Shame you’ll never know.”

The bookcases, then. They _were_ elegant. No wonder Aziraphale had been giving them fond looks. The case nearest the door was all medieval manuscripts and she knew the angel would make anxious smitey-faces if her saw her poking about in that one. She turned and started closest to the fireplace. Bookshelves only on one side? Odd not to go for symmetry. Naval rolls, bottom to top. In the next case she alighted on more interesting fare. Volumes on Morocco, Spain, Western Africa; county histories of Kent, Suffolk, Norfolk. She meandered back to the heat of the fireplace to flick through a volume on silver mines. At the bottom of the bookcase was a folio with notes and sketches for the City’s rebuilding after the Fire. She couldn’t blame him. Everyone and their clerk had turned a hand to a new plan for London, but she’d never heard that Pepys had thrown a scribble for the King’s attention. There was a list of names on the back of a sketch—all the usual suspects as competitors, notes on their ideas.

She folded it up and pocketed it for later inspection. A good sign. She hoped the diary was as full of gossip as Dr Sloane seemed to think. Deliver a charge sheet to Downstairs and she could probably take a nice long holiday. 

“Mistress Crowley?”

One of the household girls stood in the doorway, white as the moonlight and pulling nervously on each of her fingers.

“The Reverend is to say a prayer, I asked if he would. The house feels ever so strange tonight.”

“Mmm,” she agreed absently, making her way through endless shelves of ballads. She pressed close to examine them. Did Aziraphale have his eye on these? He liked music, always had.

The girl made an imploring noise that indicated she was still there and still beset by the combined terrors of death and an angel having mournful feelings. The wench looked all of fourteen and ripe for frightening.

Crowley remembered the character she was playing and set her goblet on the desk, fussing her veil into place. She followed the girl into the chamber. Sitting quietly in the dark with the dead was preferable to the dirge that passed for liturgy in these post-Reformation days, but she squeezed the servant’s arm as they crossed the threshold.

“I too am thankful our good Reverend is here. The night draws close, and demons creep in when souls depart.” She smirked behind her veil at the nervy squeak the girl made as she scooted to the other side of the room. 

The body was on a cot, not yet putrid and not likely to be so if the fastidious angel had anything to do with it. Considering the variety of ways that human imagination had dressed-up the Divine, most creeds got the facts of death right. Item (a) the soul departed the meat; (b) the soul needed directions; (c) the meat needed recycling. Religions differed on the time and effort required for (a) and (b) but (c) was pretty universal. 

No difference here, as she windershinned her way around the body; Pepys had long gone on his way and the only thing that remained of his personage was a lingering whiff of ground crocus around his whiskers. Yuck, gout _and_ gallstones.

She hoped the diary wasn’t going to be full of visceral bodily detail. 

Aziraphale looked up from the Bible he’d been perusing. Oh, that was _beautiful_ , she realised. He wasn’t pretending to flick through the Psalms, he was checking it for printer’s errors.

On the edge of a laugh, Crowley coughed for his attention. If she sounded somewhat hysterical, it could be explained away with grief.

Aziraphale forgot to look guilty, but straightened and in his best tones recited, “The Lord almighty grant us a quiet night. Cast all your cares on God.”

“Hah, you should be so lucky,” she murmured. The servant stirred. “Peter’s first epistle,” she explained. “'Buck up, Christians', he says.”

Aziraphale gave an irritable roll of his shoulders. “Company, be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour—”

This time Crowley did chuckle, but she managed to make it sound a bit more like a sob. “Whom resist,” she carried on, “steadfast in the faith.” The words stung at her tongue.

Funny how that was. Wasn’t like she didn’t direct a few choice words now and then up to Herself, but that was discourse, not _praying_. Not like this, with all the paraphernalia and the humans steaming up the room with their beliefs. It was even hard to tell if the angel got anything out of this. He’d spent enough time in monasteries that at one time Crowley thought there must be some exaltation amidst the early rising and the plainsong (wrong: manuscripts and three square meals plus mead if you picked the right order).

“But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us,” Aziraphale finished. His lashes lowered, shading his eyes. “Thanks be to God.”

He made as though to put away the Bible but she decided she wasn’t quite finished tormenting him. “Father,” she prompted, dulcet. “He was such a learned and pious man, and he did _so_ like to hear Peter in the original Greek. Shall we pray together once more in his library?”

On their return, Aziraphale swiftly reunited with his neglected brandy goblet. “More prayer, hmm? The servants don’t know quite what to make of you, Widow Crowley.”

“I can’t begin to imagine why.”

“I _should_ be scandalised by your attempts at blasphemy,” he said, “but I suppose I am better pleased to see you at practice with holy words.”

“Eh?” 

“Benedictions, blessings,” Aziraphale took a gulp of brandy, “you know. The Arrangement. Doing your part. Praying is thirsty work, don’t you find?”

“Dries out my mouth something wicked,” she admitted.

“I wonder, though, whether I ought to have paid closer attention to your conduct thus far. It wouldn’t do to have slipshod technique, my dear, not that I’m suggesting you’re in any way not competent—”

“You want to exert some quality control, angel?” 

“Well, quite. That is, if you had any queries, I would be happy—”

Her tongue flicked out. “You want to watch me sssanctify?”

“Crowley!” 

Sometimes, when Aziraphale remembered he was of the Heavenly host, and thought he ought to chastise Crowley on some point, judgemental creases appeared between his eyes that brooked no further teasing. They’d been there earlier tonight and they were back again, but now accompanied by a real warning. Shame. She’d started to line up a whole line of risque enquiries on the theme of Aziraphale directing her performance. 

“Oh, calm down.” Shoving her hands in the pockets of her skirt, she wandered back down to the far end of the room. “I’ll leave off. Only because you’ve had a bad day, mind.”

She passed one of the two globes descending from the ceiling and stood beneath it, patting it to a spin.

“It’s on a pulley,” Aziraphale sniffed. “It’s very clever.” He set down his glass and moved towards the cases again.

I’ll take that as a pardon, she thought. When the globe descended, she could look down on the CIRCULIS ARCTICO. Her favourite was GROENLANDIA, whose outline was a non-committal splodge, and whose chilly fringes Crowley still couldn’t quite believe humans had bothered to inhabit.

She twisted the globe around slowly, fingertips skipping over the latest extent of European geopolitical ideology. With her head stuck in rich people’s gardens and urban planning she hadn’t paid much attention to who was claiming to discover what for a few decades now. “NOVA ZEELANDIA. Huh.” No sign of the angel when she looked up. “Hey, Aziraphale,” she called, “the Dutch barging in on other people’s gaff now too?”

“Hmm?” He leaned out from behind a shelf and she tapped the uncertain outline in the midst of the large ocean. “Oh, yes. And if this all keeps up it’s going to be a bit messy for the competition in that part of the world. They’ve gone the pantheistic route down the South Seas and the Protestants won’t like that at all. Was rather hoping Upstairs would leave off after the Americas.”

The South Seas were tropical, weren’t they? Sounded more appealing than the mists of Clapham.

“Any chance you might get sent on assignment? Nice warm beach somewhere, break out the old loincloth and revive the desert lifestyle?” She started considering her fond memories of Aziraphale swishing about in a skimpy kaftan, drunk on palm wine— 

The angel was silent for a second. “Will you always be trying to tempt me into gallivanting about?”

Oops. Clearly she’d overstepped again. “That wasn’t tempting, angel, I think you’re the one who needs some lessons on technique if you think—”

“Figure of speech,” Aziraphale said with a weary little smile. “Only you’ve such appetite for adventure, I think Sam would have said—”

“You _love_ new things,” she interrupted, hefting the globe back up. “You couldn’t stop raving about cocoa-nuts. And you’re always messing about on the river on ships.”

“The Thames is not the Pacific Ocean.”

“I’m only saying that if your lot start with their very likely business expansion down there you might find your Principality re-extended.”

“Out of the question,” Aziraphale said firmly. “Scotland’s trouble enough.”

Crowley suddenly had a burning question, and she’d never been particularly good at stopping herself from asking. “And that’s alright with them, is it?” She pointed up. “Sorry, don’t fancy the business trip, please send one of the Dominions on secondment?”

“I—”

“Lucky for some,” she huffed, battling an urge to pull the veil back down and instead turning away to frown at a portrait of the younger Pepys. “Picking and choosing for one’s own convenience. Staying long enough to form _attachments_.”

Aziraphale was quiet in response, and she glared at the canvas, at Pepys’ fussy lace cravat, as the ridiculous voice in her own head filled the silence. It didn’t have anything novel to contribute: of course the angel had human friends, he was a being of love and it came with the territory. Of course the angel formed his own opinions. Inaction was the most deniable form of rebellion and Heaven was just too up its own arse to notice most of the time.

And then Aziraphale was at her side, taking in the portrait with her.

“I forget most of them, you know.” He inclined his head to her, but kept his eyes on the painting. “Hundreds of lifetimes. Even the spectacular ones get muddled.” He turned his gaze, and she saw the blue had silvered. She could see her own reflection in his eyes. “It’s good to have another eternal being to sha—to know what’s what.”

Crowley thought of the many, many times that they had stood together like this, watching some event take place, momentous or mundane. She thought of the first time, and the rain, and how she might need practice in prayer but the angel needed no lessons in temptation because he had unthinkingly sheltered a demon.

She pressed her lips between her teeth, lest she say something stupid yet again.

Aziraphale held out his hand, his palm full of crimson and cream petals. “Your bosom must have heaved these all over a bookcase, my dear. Were you after a particular volume?”

She looked at the crushed remains of the rose, down at her cleavage which held only a bare stem, and back up to the angel’s face. There was an unmistakable upturn at the edges of his mouth. Her voice cracked a little with laughter. “Just browsing, you know.” 

He raised his eyebrows and folded his hand back over the petals. They disappeared, a burst of damask filling the air, more than could be accounted for by the rose itself. 

She let the scent drift onto her tongue, and she didn’t care that the angel saw.

“I have found Samuel to be quite inspiring,” Aziraphale told her, like it was something he must admit. He fussed again with his stole, and she cast her glance down to the embroidery. Gold and indigo on the white silk, the orb of the world and a dove outstretched above. Ha. She wondered if he’d had the patience for the stitching. 

“Inspiring?” She stepped away before her fingertip strayed to the silk. It would burn, no doubt. “I can’t even imagine.”

“He had a good system here, you see. A cataloguing scheme. Like the best of the colleges.”

She got the impression she was meant to glean his meaning from that meagre crumb. And she thought she did, but she wasn’t going to let him get away with half-saying everything this night, mourning or not, so she shook her head and gestured ignorance.

“And these bookcases. They’re extraordinarily cunning, don’t you think?”

“They’re nice. I’m sure the students at Magdalene will find them and their contents indispensable.”

Aziraphale’s scowl blared disapproval. “You know of the will, of course.”

“Yes, very clear about his wish for his Bibliotheca Pepysiana.” She waited. 

“It’s just. Well. I seem to have amassed a small collection of manuscripts myself.”

You don’t say, thought Crowley.

(“Read it then give it away.”

“But there were only three printed! What if something happens to the other copies?”

“Aziraphale. You can remember the most turgid bit of Babylonian minstrel verse word-for-word, you don’t need to keep it.”

“I’m not keeping it,” Aziraphale had sniffed. “I’m guarding it.”

And so on.) 

A quarter-millennium of the printing press and a stern warning from Heaven about fleeting materialism—rebuffed through a snippy insistence that “guardian” covered human literary endeavour—and the angel had a storage problem.

In the there and then, Aziraphale wandered over to the side cabinet, and laid a hand on the pile he’d set aside earlier. “My friends, you see, insist on having me look after their precious volumes.”

“For posterity, of course,” she said, wry. 

“Posterity,” he agreed. “And sanctuary. Students are rough, as you know. I fear for the rarities once the undergraduates get their gravy-spotted hands all over them.”

His talent for self-deception was truly miraculous. And while it was delightful, it was also tedious. “Angel,” she snapped. “Out with it. You want a nice library so you don’t have to share. Own it.”

“I—I have nothing against—of course other people can—” Aziraphale flustered.

“You’ve got _trunks_ of books in an attic at Gresham College. Most of them are the only copy left in the world—oh, of course I know where they are, who do you think stops your chum Isaac from stumbling across them? Own. It. You certainly own them! I think it’s great, you embracing worldly acquisitions.”

“I am _looking after_ those books, Crowley. And they need indexing and storing in proper conditions.” 

“Conditions like this, you mean?” she snorted, waving her arm around the library. “Admit it, you want this yourself.”

“If we are admitting our intents, my dear, why are you here?”

There were many things that she found endlessly fascinating about Aziraphale. He was about as delinquent an angel that could be imagined. Yet he still kept his Grace. And though his default mode was ‘lazy avuncular dither’, when he wanted, he could pull the sharp blade of his mind through seven dimensions and let it hover against your cheek in an instant. 

There was never any point with cover stories around Aziraphale. What was the use? If Hell’s assignments were shocking, disappointing, gruesome, or incomprehensible, Heaven’s weren’t that different in the final analysis. 

“Perhaps I’m here to pay my respects,” she said. “And maybe, yes, to mooch about before the _vultures_ descend.” 

“You’ve never been that interested in books,” he said, all suspicion now.

She shrugged. “Books are dead trees and cows hide. And all the natural or moral philosophy in the world won’t answer the questions I have, no matter how pretty the illustrations. No, I’m only interested in books that really _say_ something.”

Aziraphale’s mouth made a perfect ‘O’ as he realised. “You’re after his diaries!”

“Weellll,” Crowley conceded. “The good bits, not the shagging the parlour-maid bits. Though I suppose most might find _those_ the good bits.”

“And what are the ‘good bits’ to a demon?” He leaned forward, eyes steady on her face.

 _Ouch_ , it was hard to feel like a respectable widow when he got like that. “Ngk. _Angel._ You really shouldn’t say things like that when you’re in that get-up. Really, _really_ don’t do that. Listen: the sixties were bloody awful, but they were chock-full of scandals, drama, destruction, and rebirth. I want to know it all.”

“And that’s why you can’t have the diaries, Crowley. A bit of Hellfire and blackmail is nothing compared to the value of that knowledge to future generations.”

“I think the humans will still be copping an unwanted feel a hundred years from now; the last thing they’ll need is an historic justification. Oh, don’t give me that disappointed look, that’s even worse when you’re in priest’s robes. I’ll take a peep. A small one. I’ll even write my own notes.” She pointed at the desk. “Won’t take me long.”

It was the fidget that gave it away. Brought them out from the cover of Aziraphale’s masterful diversion back to the accusation that _she’d_ been making. It was Crowley’s turn to gape: “Wait. _You_ were going to take the diaries!”

“I—”

“Sssomething you care to confesss, angel?” When he didn’t reply, she reached very slowly over her shoulder, and down through hidden layers of reality, to pluck a feather from her wing. She brandished it out from underneath her mantua, licking the tip of the shaft to sharpen a quill. “I’ll write my own notes,” she repeated. “We’ll both leave the diaries here. For _posterity_.”

Aziraphale cooperated for once. He even gave her a sheath of fine vellum and ink as dark as the night sky, and the catalogue to the collection so she could locate the volumes she was particularly interested in. 

Of course, he didn’t bother to warn her the diary was in something more akin to Ogham than English. She spluttered with indignation, having forgotten Pepys had been into tachygraphy.

Aziraphale chuckled from across the room.

Sassy. Too much to have hoped he’d stay meek and repentant for a little longer. Crowley glared so deeply at the page that the stupid lines and curves scurried to rearrange themselves into the long-form lettering she’d expected to see.  
_Tuesday 1 September 1663._

“So? Any ‘good bits’?”

She scanned the page. “Overclaiming on work expenses, and his wife not getting along with the in-laws. Ugh, humans.” She sighed and shoved the volume away, reaching again for the catalogue. “Hah, well, maybe the Dukes of Hell would like some of those ballads—unless you’re taking them? Just what Hell needs, some old-fashioned folk caterwauling.” Leaning back in the chair, she glanced across the room to search out Case Nine.

He looked up from his own reading at her overflow of laughter. “Hmm?”

“According to this there are fifteen bookcases.”

She’d caught him again, dead to rights, from the rising flush of his cheeks to the jut of his chin. Oh, _excellent._

“How many bookcases do you count in here, angel? Because I count _twelve_.”

He wrung his hands; oh, forget the diaries, _this_ was the good bit. 

“They were custom-made. By Sympson! They’ll be wasted on students, and Magdalene won’t know there were more, I’ll see to it.”

She set down her quill. “That’s it, I’m afraid,” she told him, not even bothering to smother her glee. “You’ve gone too far this time.”

“Crowley?”

“Aziraphale. You may have lost a friend here, but—you’ll not be alone. I’m hardly going to let you out of my circle again after this bit of deviousness, not for a few hundred years at least. I’ve _got_ to see whatever it is you do next.”

He relaxed minutely, clearly relieved his larceny was going unchallenged but wary of her meaning. “Our Arrangement doesn’t work that way, you know.”

“I think you’ll find it does if I want it to. I think you’ll find that I’m feeling fairly acquisitional myself.”

Aziraphale’s smile dawned ever so faintly. As Crowley turned back to the catalogue, her answering smile felt very smug indeed.

### Authors' Notes

 **Gresham College, London  
**Crowley and Aziraphale both had interests in the pop-scholarly goings-on at [Gresham](https://www.gresham.ac.uk/about/), which grew increasingly competitive as time passed. Crowley had been patiently waiting to toss that zinger about the books in the attic for at least a decade.

 **Hewer’s house  
**[Pepys spent his last years](https://claphamsociety.com/Articles/article21-pepys-moved-to-Clapham.html), and [died](https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/death-samuel-pepys), in Clapham at the house of his former clerk, William Hewer. Clapham in 1703 was not the bustling Zone 2 res-des bit of central London it is nowadays, but rather thought of as the clean-aired countryside. By all descriptions Pepys got a good deal, as Hewer’s house was “well furnish’d and comfortable”.

 **Peter’s first epistle  
**The [prayer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_of_Peter) Aziraphale recites.

 **Royal Society luminaries  
**[Robert Hooke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hooke) and [Christopher Wren](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Wren) are mentioned here, and both were men of many interests, talents, and achievements. You may know Wren as an architect; he was into astronomy and mechanics (fave topics of many of the Royal Society founders) as well as “dabbling” in politics as a four-time MP. Hooke gets a bit of short shrift as he seems to have been a grumpy bastard, but for the purposes of this tale he came up with the wave theory of light while Newton was stuck on particles, and Crowley thought that was neat.

 **Samuel Pepys’s bookcases  
**These are an actual thing: Pepys is credited with commissioning some of the [first purpose-built bookcases](http://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=1903) in the country. The actual number may be disputed, with most at Magdalene College and some, ahem, in private hands.

 **Samuel Pepys’s diaries  
**[Written by Samuel Pepys](https://www.pepysdiary.com/about/)—London-based civil servant, bon vivant, and collector—during the tumultuous decade of the 1660s. Crowley randomly chooses to read [the entry](https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1663/09/01/) for Tuesday 1 September 1663.

 **St Olave’s Churchyard Gate  
**Pepys’s old neighbourhood church St Olave’s (aka [Saint Ghastly Grim](https://www.london-walking-tours.co.uk/secret-london/st-olave-skulls.htm)) was one of the few to survive the Fire. The gate with its skulls would have been in place at the time of his funeral.

 **Tachygraphy  
**Pepys’s diaries were written in [tachygraphy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Shelton_\(stenographer\)), also known as Shelton’s short-hand.

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 5

[Suspirium](https://open.spotify.com/track/0rlfGg5Ym6J9AA97ah7voH?si=nJjGDHdDTgGK3quroSzWuQ)  
Thom Yorke

[Valse "la plus que lente"](https://open.spotify.com/track/3RZMjQIfUlfTpcuZqdVPtn?si=EB7jjRFhQae5VD6U4m14HA)  
Claude Debussy

#### Perfume

[Rien](https://www.etatlibredorange.com/en/boutique/rien-en/) by Etat Libre d’Orange  
Samuel Pepys’s library in Clapham

[Knowing](https://www.esteelauder.co.uk/product/571/1924/product-catalog/fragrance/knowing/eau-de-parfum-spray) by Estee Lauder  
A crimson-and-cream rose at Crowley’s bosom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/617130465018740736/planning-permission). In which, we describe the fun of playing with historic detail (and how easily one can fall down Wikipedia rabbit holes...)


	6. Regent's Park & Piccadilly, October

The leaves were only just starting to turn in Regent’s Park. Not so much late as fashionably reluctant. Crowley knew this with the certainty of someone who had kept rigorous mental notes about such things on and off for the last century—and as someone who also showed up to a party dressed as he liked and when he bloody well pleased.

Of course it never took much to impress the angel, that had always been his charm. Walking beside him along the path, Aziraphale stooped to pick up a fallen leaf. “Crowley, look, the leaf matches your eyes.”

He glanced down in time to see crispy edges soften and the brown spots fade from what was now a uniformly amber leaf. 

The angel stroked a fingertip down the blade. “A seasonal keepsake. Plane trees are marvellous, aren’t they.” 

Crowley shrugged, enjoying the pleasurable tingle of the possible compliment despite his better judgement. Teasing knowledge or blissful ignorance? He’d never been certain whether Aziraphale was aware Crowley was responsible for the mass planting of _plantus x acerifolia_ across the city in the eighteenth century. The London plane tree had been the sort of long-game, multi-layered demonic intervention he’d perfected around the time:

  * Find a clever human to do his work for him. (Tradescant the Younger in this case; not the first of many such outsourced jobs for that family from the demon Crowley.)
  * Clean up enough of the effects of the pollution that no one worried about _stopping_ the pollution in the first place. (Pollution had stood him a drink for that one.)
  * Mess about urban infrastructure with under-paving root systems _and_ raise house prices on the leafiest streets, thereby pricing out the humans who would most benefit from a bit of green. (The ones with _souls._ )
  * Please the angel. (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was probably something like _Make that Aziraphale smile, yeah?_ because blessed if Crowley could remember differently.)



“No sign of anthracnose,” he sniffed, and left it at that.

Aziraphale disappeared the leaf with an impudent flourish. Crowley stuck his tongue out at him in response, letting it fork then disappear back into his mouth a moment later he should have. As they rounded a bend in the path and came to the edges of the crowd, one of the waiting humans stared at him and nudged her friend. He grinned back, all teeth, and she backed up, startled, into someone behind her. The human snapped, she apologised, her friend snapped back, and Crowley felt a gratifying satiation as chaotic energy soothed his empty spaces. Then he remembered that he couldn’t trust to leave the angel alone for a moment.

“Aziraphale, what do you think you’re doing? You’re queueing, aren’t you. I knew it. You have actually taken a programme and you’re settling in for a wait.”

“Err.” He had the grace to look embarrassed, even though his Grace should have allowed him no such thing.

“We don’t queue,” Crowley reminded him. “I know it makes you feel English but have some bloody dignity.”

“You queued to sign Lady Diana’s memorial book.”

He scowled.

Aziraphale closed his programme in a hurry. “Right, then. Art! In we go!”

_Ars longa vita brevis_ and all that, but being eternal beings those opinions that they had were long-held. Crowley had played patron and muse to both Leonardo di Vinci and Tracey Emin. (The unmade bed, _come on_. Even Duke Hastur had “got” that one.) Aziraphale, for his part, was a late adopter but tended to splash his appreciation about too indiscriminately to take seriously (and his eye for an allegory was near obsessive). 

That was why the angel took charge when it came to auctions, or—Hell forfend, car boot sales—but Crowley was firmly in the driver’s seat when it came to their annual visit to the Frieze. The art fair was a demon’s paradise, to the point where years ago he’d arrived at the ideal ratios of activity in order to get the most out of their visit: influencing trends (30%); talent-spotting the artists and dealers ripe for a good demonic bargain (25%); adding to his own personal collection (15%); teasing Aziraphale about his ridiculous taste in art (10%); looking effortlessly cool whereas everyone else was trying too hard (10%); keeping everyone guessing about whether Regent’s Park tube station was actually open (5%); occasionally conceding the angel had a point (2%); quaffing free champagne (2%); and losing the angel to the refreshment zone (1%).

Of course, Frieze’s much less glamorous relation, the Affordable Art Fair, also offered entertainment value. That one was half tempting young couples to spend beyond their means “because it’s an investment, darling” and the other half making desperate artists think they’d made a sale before backing out of the buy at the last second. No fun to take Aziraphale to that one, though. He’d tell everyone what a jolly good job they’d done, and not to worry, “Crowley, you’ll buy that one, won’t you? Isn’t she good!” which rather defeated the purpose.

A flick of Crowley’s fingers had someone’s handbag setting off the metal detectors while he ushered Aziraphale through and into the grand pavilion. A few pop-up tents in a park, technically, but oh so much more. He snagged a plastic flute of champagne and slugged it back, before giving it a stern look until it refilled.

Aziraphale had the damn programme out again.

“Ugh, you want to do this methodically, don’t you?” In front of them there was some sort of beastly array of taxidermy and mirrors. It looked just as promising as the dead pigeons thing from last year. But noooo, the angel wanted to go to stall A1 first. Like he did every year.

“Fine,” Crowley grumbled, “But I’m confiscating the programme.”

Aziraphale beamed at him and exchanged it for the champagne with a little wink. Half the black clothing in the building suddenly reconsidered its life choices and developed colourful accents.

Crowley grinned down at some fuschia thread that had attached itself to buttonholes of his three-piece, and opened the programme. “Right, then. A1. Oh, they’re passable. I don’t mind starting there.”

The answering smile gained wattage, and off they went.

By B5, though, Aziraphale had noticed his twitching. “You go have your fun,” he reassured. “I’m going to, hmm, look at this artist’s work.”

He didn’t even have to glance over his shoulder to know—he could _feel_ it from the reactions of the humans around them _._ “You’ll hate it. Mixed media nightmare woven through with rich historic meaning.”

“Perhaps you’re right. Red embroidery thread, skeins of it. Tangled.” Aziraphale’s voice was muffled as he was turned towards the stand, but the dawning horror was clear enough. It was too late for escape, though—the artist had spotted a victim.

“E15,” Crowley told him, then made his escape before he too could be drawn into a discussion of silk and capitalist oppression.

On a meandering, circuitous tour, Crowley took it all in. Dressed to the nines as he was, it was enjoyable to play merry havoc with the dealers who tried to catch his eye as he sauntered past their wares. He switched around a few “sold” dots beside paintings—silly stuff, but it took the edge off—until he’d absorbed his fill of the humans’ insecurities. 

The discontent caused by the gross misunderstanding of contemporary art, coupled with the horror of learning the price of said art, was shoring up his power reserves nicely. In the past, he wouldn’t have been too concerned by such things, but the new celestial in the neighbourhood was a sharp reminder that somewhere out there too was another demon drawing Crowley’s former stipend from the Old Firm’s accounts. Better to have his own power for his own projects in case they took back the company card. 

By the time he prowled back in the direction of Goodness and Light, he was in high spirits again. He found the angel where he’d been directed, deep in contemplation of a wall-sized canvas. He was planted in front of it, legs braced, his feathery curls tilted this way and that in scattered thought. A decisive posture, and yet that ages-old hesitancy so intrinsic to him, even as he stood his ground. 

The delightfulness of the contradiction had always hit Crowley right in the deepest parts of himself—what was more tempting to the tempter than a strong will practically begging to be bent? He couldn’t resist crowding within touching distance.

“You liiike it,” he drawled, leaning in over the angel’s shoulder, right up to the curve of his ear. A hackneyed move, but a classic for a reason.

Aziraphale didn’t startle from his scrutiny of the painting. But from this close, he could see the small curves and creases of skin as eyes, mouth, chin tilted upwards in humoured agreement.

Year-on-year he’d bring the angel here, for this exact exchange. Over a sculpture, or some felt pigeons, or a decadent splatter of pigment. How _could_ She have thought to end the world? A world where they had yet to resolve their ever-evolving arguments about Art?

“It’s lovely. A little mainstream, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But something new in the use of colour,” Aziraphale conceded. “And, perhaps, something to say that one might hear, given time.” He turned his head to smile, close and conspiratorial. 

Yes, this would do; the angel _did_ like it, use of colour and stumbling meaning and all.

They stayed there awhile longer, with Aziraphale appreciating the canvas on the wall, and with Crowley arching a brow at the little card beside it, and with that card showing exactly the price that he was willing to pay.

* * *

Marylebone High Street always held the promise of being more fascinating than it actually was, but it was the least boring pedestrian option from Regents Park to Mayfair and Aziraphale made enthusiastic noises about the lamb wellington at a nearby restaurant.

October contrived to make the terrace too windswept. That was a shame, because it overlooked what the denizens of Fitzrovia delighted in calling a “farmer’s market” and was really just a physical manifestation of crafty Instagrammers. 

“Cabbages curly-ampersand Frocks, give me strength,” Crowley snorted as they walked past, and even Aziraphale’s lip had curled at the price of the cupcakes. 

Lunch was a simple spread of the lamb and a decent saunter through the wine list. Their window table gave them some commentary on the High Street outside, but in large part they dissected the art they’d seen at the Fair. In practice that meant an exchange of views on Mourão’s rusted ironwork cubes plus an hour of contextualising those opinions with first-hand anecdata on the world’s artistic traditions.

The trio at the table next to them probably weren’t expecting an undergraduate syllabus in art history with their soup and salad, but Crowley thought they ought to be jolly grateful given his work with the Liberal Democrats on the cost of a degree.

On occasion Aziraphale reached into his coat pocket for a notebook and jotted a few words. He kept missing the pocket on the return, which amused Crowley to no end. And revealed the interesting fact: the gear-shift in the angel’s state of being had extended even to new outerwear.

A comment on the coat earned him a dimpled smile, and a twist to show it off. “I thought I ought to trade-in for something warm when I’m out in the countryside.”

“You’ve got toggles,” Crowley reached over to flick one of them. “And a hood.” For all of the casual shock of a duffel, the coat was the same length and colour and outrageously bespoke tailoring as before. And a hand-stitched little globe and dove on the sleeve straps, he noticed with fascination, though he knew far better than to comment on _that_.

The notebook, it turned out, was for a list of errands involving various high-end purveyors of specialist goods. First, a diversion to Wigmore Hall to collect tickets for a string quartet, albeit one that hadn’t been planning to tour until Aziraphale thought he might like to see them at Christmas.

“I had no idea we’d programmed them for December,” said the attendant in the box office as he handed over the tickets.

“Miraculous.” Crowley rolled his eyes and steered them back out to the street before any other orchestral players had their holiday season rearranged.

Then a back-track up Marylebone Lane to an instrument maker so that the angel could discuss having his bow re-haired, at which utterance Crowley laughed so hard he had to leave the shop and wander next door to the Wallace Collection to calm down.

The Back State Room was conveniently quiet. Crowley sent the gallery attendant on an urgent errand and was checking in on an overly-ornate but mechanically-splendid astronomical clock when Aziraphale joined him. 

“So rude! See if I ever play my cello for you again,” the angel threatened.

“Yo-Yo noooo,” he replied, sliding a wooden inlay panel back into place. “You never do anyhow.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing with that clock?” Aziraphale frowned up at him.

He stepped down off the beechwood armchair he’d dragged over to reach the clock’s mechanisms. He’d convinced a filthy rich Parisian banker to commission it in the 1750s and the technology was exquisite to this day. Just a shame about the _outre_ putti. “I know a sight more than whoever passes for a specialist horologist in this place, angel. Honestly, I’m tempted to stick this in the V&A instead.”

Aziraphale dusted off the chair with what was probably a meaningful glance at Crowley’s shoes and with a flick of his fingers returned it across the gallery. The attendant came back into the room, looking befuddled. 

“Here’s a radical thought, my dear, you could keep your art at _your_ place.”

Today wasn’t the day for being interrogated on why he didn’t keep all his favourite items of value in one location. That was a discussion that involved unpacking concepts such as “favourite” and “meaningful” and, most distressingly, “one’s _place_ ”. Anyhow, Aziraphale was one to talk—

“You can’t lecture _me_ about having a few hidey-holes. Not now you’re off to jaunt around the country to pick up memories you couldn’t find space for in here.”

He reached out to gently tap the angel’s forehead, to distract both of them from the sudden tension the thought caused. 

“Besides,” he continued, “in what dimension would this fit my current aesthetic? It’s better it lives here with all its other Baroque friends. This museum is a public service, keeping all the embarrassing stuff in one place.”

The diversion worked.

“You can’t possibly think the Rembrandt is embarrassing.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said as they walked out, “the collection of miniatures are one of my Vanity success stories.”

“I like the Fragonard,” said Aziraphale firmly. “A lot.”

“I can just imagine you on some Arcadian swing—”

“It’s very charming, and clever social commentary.”

“—in a big hat. Flashing your pantaloons.”

“Oh no.” The angel had the temerity to actually flutter his eyelashes. “I’ve never flashed my pantaloons in my life.”

“Just as well we’re heading to Ground Zero for businesses that have the royal warrant,” Crowley said at the corner of South Moulton, peering over Aziraphale’s shoulder at the list of boutique emporiums. He was struck with relief that Heaven and Hell hadn’t seen fit to knock them down mortal and unpowered. Imagine trying to keep Aziraphale in the decadent style to which he was accustomed. Cost per wear, my arse.

“Shall we?” Crowley was feeling nicely replete and generous with it. That’d be the dissatisfaction of shoppers at his best bit of Oxford Street, itself already a classic reference point Down Below. Putting a Primark down one end and a bunch of aspirational shops all around it. Underappreciated genius, that was. 

Aziraphale peered behind them as they veered them over to New Bond Street, frowning at the listless and unhappy faces quarrelling in front of increasingly chi-chi shops.

“Do please haul in your backdraft,” he said. “You’re not the only one who’d like a little extra reserve in the tank these days, and I always get a pick-me-up from the engagement ring shoppers around here.”

Fair enough, Crowley conceded, and minded how he went.

Aziraphale was in and out of Victorinox so quickly that Crowley had no time to savour the two Uber drivers both pulling into traffic at the same time.

“Wasn’t me, angel,” Crowley held his hands up as the yelling began, “that’s the dangers of modern life. Even you’re carrying a knife again.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and flicked open the officer’s knife he’d had sharpened (original 1897, oak and ebony worn smooth). “A corkscrew is hardly a flaming sword.”

A little bubble of relish popped delightfully in Crowley’s insides. Of course Aziraphale prioritised a sharpened corkscrew to take on his travels. No idea how he was getting from A to B, but blessed if he was going to be caught short if he needed to open a bottle of red.

Crowley reached over and snicked the knife shut, because as much as he was revelling in the glances they were getting from other shoppers, there were some bothersome laws about carrying a four-inch blade on the streets of London. Aziraphale tended to get very impatient with the police, and they were, if at all possible, attempting to keep a low profile.

“Hey hey, angel, this wasn’t on the list.” With a diversionary conversation about a nice pinot he’d been keeping for a special occasion, Aziraphale had sidled them into the lobby of Bonham’s. 

“Dropping off my reference for Anathema.” He pressed the button for the lift. 

“Uh-huh.” 

Out of an inner coat pocket, the angel drew forth a cream envelope, bookshop address in the top-left corner. It was neatly labelled “Human Resources”. Whatever. Crowley knew the demon who invented HR. Half-arsed job. 

“I’ll only be a tick. Come up—”

“Oh no. The only way to get you out of an auction house is to abandon you—”

“—I think there are some nice watches in the saleroom—”

“—so you feel guilty dawdling—oh no no no, are you seriously, actually, trying to tempt _me_? Stop embarrassing yourself, I’ll be in Belstaff—”

The lift door shut on Aziraphale’s cheery little wave. 

A little whoosh of light-headedness told Crowley that the angel actually had turned the charm on him. Not the kind of functional persuasion they used on humans, but something a little unguarded and free-range. All promise, no direction. Gah. Heady stuff.

He lingered a few moments in the lobby, shaking off the mindless physical compulsion to climb the stairs and leave with an outrageous bit of timekeeping bling, and smirking that Aziraphale had managed to catch him unawares. 

“Yeah, but the last time I went in that showroom with you I barely came out with change from two million.” Back out on the street and heading south, he grudgingly admitted that Aziraphale had kept his promise to be brief.

“No-one made you bid on that Calder.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I couldn’t let anyone else have it. And it made so many rich people so angry. Such a great day. Where to now?”

Crowley caught sight of their reflections in a shopfront. He noticed the easy stride with which Aziraphale paced beside him, the proximity of their steps and the flow of London around them, minding their own business and of no real concern to an angel and a demon who plotted their own course through the traffic. He had a brief moment of panic about Aziraphale’s impending absence, pictured him gone from their reflection, another shift in the balance. But it passed, like each similar moment in the past month since the angel had said he was off. 

How had he phrased it?

(“—for a perambulation.” Aziraphale’s decisive voice had said, behind him, as Crowley had idled over the map.

“A perambu—what what?”

“Walkabout. An excursion about the country. I’ve been in London for ever so long. You’ve always been on at me to get out more, and I think I agree.”

Crowley had been silent, listening in the aether for a quaver in his resolution, some dissembling wavelength, but there was none. Just the angel’s blessed fair face and a plea for understanding.

And he had understood. As much as he’d needed. As much as Aziraphale had needed to hear.

“ _Emeritus_ privilege, eh? Do your own thing?”

Aziraphale had lit up, the crumpled wrinkles of his vigil spent pondering the map fading away, and a sense of relief had filled the room with such force that Crowley had felt he was being embraced on all sides.

“You don’t mind?”

“Nah. I don’t mind, angel. Brave new world, innit? Go explore.”)

Now, meandering in the boutiquey heart of Piccadilly, circling Aziraphale out of long habit as he consulted his notebook, Crowley was grateful for the longevity of his right-angled feelings. Aziraphale’s happy anticipation was infectious; Crowley felt buoyant in its reflection. Turn again. Armageddon had royally fucked with his head and so too with Aziraphale’s, but there, at ninety degrees, was resolve. Their own side, but also their own paths to be trod.

He knew that Aziraphale needed to machete his way, corkscrew in hand, through whatever thicket of memories he’d left out there. Turn again to one-eighty and Crowley’s stomach dropped into the unknown. What would the angel encounter from their shared past? Would he lift the stones on things long buried? And if he did, how would he feel about what he’d found? What would those secrets change?

Crowley’s last turn took him face-to-face with mussed curls and the tangle of their lifetimes, two free ends suddenly laid clear.

He knew what he knew. Had held that knowledge close for so long and smoothed away all its cutting edges. And now Aziraphale wanted to remember. Or thought he might.

How on Earth was he supposed to feel about that? In lieu of an answer, he reached out and brushed one of Aziraphale’s curls away, set it behind his ear, and let a hand rest on his shoulder. 

“What’s next?” His words came out hoarse, and he casually moved his hand away again to thumb his shades. 

The lightest of pauses. The lightest of touches, returned, smoothing his hair from his cheek. “Footwear. If you can indulge me.”

_If you can indulge me._ Oh, that wouldn’t do for a street corner. That was fourth-floor, warded doors, second bottle of wine, leaving the next day sort of stuff. He looked at his watch, a little dazed, a little adrift, and saw that he had all the time in the world.

At the cordwainer, Crowley bivouacked in a comfy armchair by the window, far enough from Aziraphale’s deal-making that the effulgence of the happy angel pressed less closely. It was a good opportunity to have a rummage through the satin-ribboned bags to see what Aziraphale had looted thus far. Socks—argyle of course. Some sneaky chocolates and toffees. A heavily-engineered compact umbrella. Crowley hadn’t even _seen_ him nip into Peal for a sky-blue vest whose cashmere could only have come from the finest and fanciest goats. 

At the other end of the shop, Aziraphale was lacing up boots. Handmade, built on a set of personalised maple lasts that he’d had fashioned just before his ill-judged trip to revolutionary Paris. The leather was a burnished chestnut that already looked a century old—but the kind of century where a valet polished that leather everyday, Sir. 

“Crowley?” The angel leaned back on his stool and pointed out his foot, all coquette.

“Are you Fragonarding me now?” If only hose were still in fashion. No way to admire the line of a calf in those trousers. 

The shoemaker stifled a smile; no doubt an unoriginal joke for a man in his line of business. 

Crowley stalked over for a closer look, knowing the proprietor was checking out his own shoes and feeling smug he’d manifested something fabulous for their outing.

“Keep them on and put those gamey old loafers in the charity bin.”

“Thank you, but I shall keep my perfectly serviceable brogues, I am sure.”

Diplomatically, the shoemaker said, “We can recycle your old pair, Mr Fell.”

“See, even the expert thinks they’re beyond hope.”

“In a bag, if you please,” Aziraphale said firmly.

“Hold up.” Crowley studied the window of Pickett’s. “All this new gear of yours. What were you planning to cart it about in? There was nothing on your list.”

“I do have the ideal satchel, Crowley. It’s lasted me since the nineteenth—”

“Ugh. _Exactly._ ”

Aziraphale looked bemused, which, in Crowley’s opinion, meant it was safer to bundle him across the way to a tea shop across the way than let him choose the luxury hold-all for himself.

The angel was fork-deep into _millefeuille_ and sipping on Darjeeling when Crowley returned. “Right,” he told him. “You’re sorted. Hand-stitched leather, and sturdy enough that a cutpurse won’t be able to saw through and make off with anything.”

“Goodness,” said Aziraphale dryly. “And highwaymen? I was planning on crossing Hounslow Heath and experience tells me one can never be too careful.”

Crowley grinned; he’d wondered if Aziraphale had kept that particular memory. “Can’t promise the bags will stand up to that much excitement, but they’ll be delivered to the bookshop tomorrow. 

“Thank you, my dear.”

“Yeah...also got you some gloves.” He hated being upsold, but the leather had been soft and in the same chestnut as the boots.

“And you’ve bought yourself something?”

Crowley glanced down at the silk-cashmere scarf tied around his neck. The plum paisley had caught his eye. “Wouldn’t want you have all the fun,” he said, but he was _lying_ , because the angel clearly _was_ having fun and honestly, what in the universe was better than that?

Off west on Burlington Gardens to the Arcade. Another stop, and Crowley left Aziraphale browsing scents (“I knew old William Penhaligon, you know, he was my barber when he first moved to London. Didn’t he capture the spirit of Blenheim nicely?”) while he picked up his own package from the jeweller. 

Then the dog-leg back through Berkeley Square, while the angel thrust each wrist in Crowley’s face and demanded a verdict on cologne.

“Need to lick it to tell you properly,” Crowley said in self-defense.

“Well.” Did Aziraphale flush? “I bought them both.”

It was a short stroll until they reached Chesterfield Street. The doorman at the Bahamas embassy gave them a hat tip as they passed. Crowley returned the salute.

“I remember when you moved in,” said Aziraphale, gazing up at the Georgian townhouses.

“Yeah, always been a good business investment, on this little street.”

“I’m sure, though you certainly seemed more comfortable here once White’s moved.”

Crowley made a face. “I’ve known imps of the fourth circle with better taste than that Brummell had. And private clubs do my head in. I mean, the dress codes and membership rules are solid low-level evil, but everything else is so bloody _overt_.”

They came to where the Bentley was parked against the curb. 

“You’re looking very lovely.”

“Angel, don’t croon at my car.” Hold on a second. How _was_ Aziraphale planning to travel? Surely he wasn’t taking public transport. Crowley couldn’t claim any credit for the current privatised mess of the railways, but the ongoing distress and outrage were an occasional tonic.

Didn’t mean though that he wanted the angel’s journey botched up by the inevitable engineering works between Peterborough and Doncaster.

“What are you doing for car hire, then? Land Rover for the northern moors? Wasn’t the last time you drove in a field ambulance in Flanders?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, there’s a Zipcar on Soho Square and I have a sight more experience with modern engines than you do—no offense, dear,” Aziraphale patted the roof of the Bentley. 

“Electric’s not going to get you further than Milton Keynes in shit traffic.”

“It’s a good thing I’ve an off-peak single from Kings Cross tomorrow morning.”

Oh Satan, he was _actually_ going to take the train. “Please no. Don’t. Not even first class. It’s Sunday tomorrow, I shudder to think the drain on your celestial powers it will take to make the timetable be accurate. Look,” Crowley found the words tumbling out in a fit of solicitude, “take the Bentley.” 

“Oh. Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly.”

“Yeah, you could.”

“Crowley. What a lovely gesture, really, but I couldn’t.” 

Aziraphale stopped, his hand fluttering back down to rest atop her bonnet properly, to look at the car and then to look back at him. That _face._ Crowley didn’t need breath, and certainly didn’t need to hold it, but the moment hung in the air long enough for fierce anticipation to take hold. One, two, three:

“No, wait. Of course I can. Why not? Why not indeed.” Grey-blue eyes shone; his hands splayed possessively. “ _Yes._ I would love to borrow her.”

Crowley felt his own glee curl through him. “It’s the other way ‘round. Way I see it, she’s borrowing you.” He nudged his way closer, leaning down to rest his own palms on the bonnet, just beside. The metal was cool, but the engine idled on its own accord and purred under their touch.

Aziraphale’s fingers flexed, then he sighed and dragged his palm atop Crowley’s hand. The angel’s touch flared heat, Presence drumming through them both. The press of his thumb seemed possessive, in a way that sunk deep into every synapse. Crowley felt in dizzying accord with his besotted car.

At the front step, the little snake door-knocker hissed welcome. Crowley slid off his sunglasses, stowing them in his jacket pocket. “You’re incorrigible. You’ve got them all swooning. I’ve half a mind to leave you on the step before you seduce my sanseveria.”

Aziraphale, close on the step with him, smelling of amber colognes and a very nice day out, chuckled. “My dear,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s far too late to worry about _that_.”

“So,” he managed, across his answering laugh. “You’d better come in then, angel.”

The door swung open for them. 

### Authors' Notes

**13 Chesterfield Street  
**When you write fiction, it’s both a boon and a bane to have lived in London. Boon because you’re familiar with so many nooks and crannies; a bane because you absolutely must know, down to the street number, where your demon [lives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesterfield_Street).

**Art, Longstanding discussions about  
**Immortalised by Meissonier in [this portrait](https://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMP/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=65259&viewType=detailView). COME ON, IS THAT NOT THEM?

**Calder  
**Alexander Calder, twentieth-century sculptor, known for his much-imitated kinetic mobiles. Crowley won [Maripose](https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21021/lot/111/) at auction and is just waiting for the right high-ceilinged hallway to put it up in. His favourite Calder is this [little sketch](https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23939/lot/3/?category=list): it makes him laugh.

**Fragonard, the Astronomical clock, and the rest of the Wallace collection  
**Even if you didn’t know it by name or artist, you have probably seen the [Fragonard painting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swing_\(painting\)) before: a charming young lady in a pink dress on a swing in the forest. It’s smaller than you think and like most of the art in the Wallace Collection it's a little bit naff even though a masterpiece. And Crowley’s Astronomical clock is [this](https://www.wallacecollection.org/collection/astronomical-clock/) one.

**Frieze Art Fair  
**Contemporary [art fest](https://frieze.com/fairs/frieze-london) around which your authors love to nosey. Crowley probably has an eye on [Mourão](https://nararoesler.art/en/artists/57-raul-mourao/)’s rusted ironwork cubes for himself.

**Liberal Democrats on the cost of a degree  
**From “no University tuition fees” to over £9000 a year faster than you can say “[Nick Clegg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUDjRZ30SNo) was a lying liar who lied”.

**Penhaligon’s  
**The establishment of canonical fact that Aziraphale wears cologne and Crowley pays close attention to same did not go unnoticed by these authors, who (unfortunately for you if you don’t care) will dab fragrance trivia onto the pulse of this story. Penhaligon’s is an English fragrance house in the Burlington Arcade with a long history but a slightly hit-and-mix offering considering their lineage. [Blenheim Bouquet](https://www.penhaligons.com/blenheim-bouquet-eau-de-toilette/) is one of their oldest.

**Tracey Emin’s bed  
**A conceptual artist, Emin was one of the key Young British Artists of the 90s and [this piece](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-tracey-emins-my-bed-ignored-societys-expectations-women) was her Turner Prize show.

**Tradescant the Younger  
**Along with his dad, [one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tradescant_the_Younger) of the most famous European botanists and plant hunters of the Enlightenment. His family’s collections of curiosities formed the cornerstone of what is now the Ashmolean Museum, and both Johns were gardeners to the nobility and royalty. Philippa Gregory's Tradescant novel Earthly Joys is pretty good.

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 6

[Carry On Phenomenon](https://open.spotify.com/track/1jZQF0ANhqRIakGV7Hp4xf?si=P_GO1xSPRRmTltwEQR3p7g)  
Kishi Bashi

[With Plenty of Money and You](https://open.spotify.com/track/00cr1fLWx8gH42doAoHAvh?si=Jj7EuEoFR1OWV3c-iI_6Fg)  
Count Basie ft. Tony Bennet

#### Perfume

[No. 89](https://www.florislondon.com/en_gbp/no-89-eau-de-toilette), by Floris  
Crowley in his three-piece suit on Bond Street

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/617400921560907776/chapter-six-regents-park-piccadilly). In which, we describe point of view, narrative groove, and shopping (which is an Art).


	7. Mayfair, October

The first of the house protections hit him like a sun shower: steam rising from warmed ground, gentle drizzle touching his hair, his cheek, saying hello. Aziraphale rolled his shoulders, letting the chill of the autumn out of his muscles. Here at Crowley’s place the overly-familiar sensations of welcome remained a delightful surprise, even after a year of it. Ever since he’d been invited that pivotal night to do more than pay a social call. (“Stay, if you’d like.”)

There was a thrill in feeling Crowley’s Will made manifest, and that Will finding him not only suitable but someone whose presence should be encouraged. He sent a _thank you_ into the aether, and heard the door-knocker hiss once more as it closed behind them.

Crowley was three steps ahead, already passing out of the vestibule. He snapped his fingers for the lights as he did; overhead, the inset of stained glass set above the inner door sparked shards of colour onto the matte grey walls of the corridor. Despite this glory, Aziraphale felt the usual almost-claustrophobic dysphoria of the vestibule. More Victorian than Georgian, and demon-influenced, the vestibule felt pinched and narrow, as though any visitor was being squeezed out the door again rather than being funneled in. He stepped underneath the glass window, into the house proper, and the dissuading sensation eased.

Aziraphale paused to set his bags down. When he looked up again Crowley had shouldered off his long black coat, and was swinging it onto a waiting hook.

“Just leave everything and come up.” Crowley’s lanky legs hurdled the stairs, shopping bags swaying as he bounded around the landing corner to disappear from sight. Rather more carefully, Aziraphale hung his own coat.

He noted with interest the intricate pulley system tied off beside the newel post and looked upwards. The black (“Anthracite, for the last—”) bicycle (“You’re killing me here, angel, she’s a carbon-fibre Cipollini and you’ll show her proper respect”) was much like his own beloved Victorinox and a little like Crowley himself. Expertly crafted, sleekly beautiful, and deceptively complex. He cast it an admiring but baffled smile as he passed underneath and stretched to his tip-toes to stroke the suspended wheel into a spin.

The staircase zig-zagged up out of sight and the technical geometry of the bike gave way to a profusion of staghorn ferns, clamped onto the wall in defiance of gravity and throwing trophy-hunter shadows onto the floor. They gave off a crumbly, peaty smell; he had no sense of what Crowley was feeding them in lieu of leaf litter but he strongly suspected that old bags of Lapsang Souchong had something to do with it.

Then again, he thought at the second floor, nudging through the door Crowley had swung open, the smell might yet be from the slag of decomposed demon in unholy amalgam with definitely-holy water. It was a metaphysical bastard of a concoction and one that he was still not quite certain they’d excoriated away. A goodly reservoir of energy though, that puddle on the rug, and they had put it to excellent use fortifying the protections here and in the bookshop. In the end, no real matter.This second-floor office was in practice Crowley’s front of house, a place to receive (invite-lure-annoy-tempt-destroy, choose as many as apply) humans and infernal beings alike.

A selection of show plants, but he’d soaked in enough of Crowley’s passion over the centuries to learn that these hardy semi-tropicals were merely exemplars in the dubious botanical category of ‘thrives in cubicles under neon strip lighting’.

Crowley’s office itself was a large reception space, sparsely outfitted with aggressively rococo furniture and intimidatingly recognisable art. The high-end electronics were either outsize (television) or miniscule (speakers), nowadays scanning the AM/FM of occult frequencies simply as a precautionary measure. The venetian blinds should have given it away (“Angel, I’ve come up with the ugliest and most labour-intensive bit of interior decor this century, come look!”), but it had still taken some time for Aziraphale to recognise that this floor had the most contrary manifestations of the demon’s genuine interests. It was all decoy, and the amount of time Crowley spent here was in inverse proportion to his frame of mind.

Levering open the blinds, Aziraphale studied the view from the middle window, overlooking the time-capsule that was Chesterfield Street. As a regular of the original White’s, he remembered vividly the day a sharply-dressed and very drunk Crowley had turned up outside the club hollering for him to see his new acquisition. They’d stood in the street, Aziraphale recalled, with a small crowd of onlookers placing wagers from the doorway. Crowley had loudly proclaimed that he had purchased “the one across the way” and that if the Principality thought he was going to save the souls of those poorly-dressed reprobates, he’d have “another think” coming, what with Sin now “in the house.”

It had been ostentatiously bad acting, even for the two of them, but by the mid-eighteenth century Crowley had been convinced that they needed a good reason to be seen together on occasion. His solution to being so often in the vicinity of the Punchbowl with an angel had been to buy in the neighbourhood (for surveillance) and make it clear that the pub was considered _his_ territory (best ale in the borough; vice). Aziraphale, also in the neighbourhood, likewise considered the pub _his_ territory (best ale in the borough; redemption). Was it any wonder that they needed to battle once a week with a drinking contest and boastful banter?

Aziraphale had found this plan to be baffling in the way that most of the demon’s byzantine plans had been baffling. But the pretence had worked for their colleagues, and frankly, he’d been unable to argue in the face of fine company, libations, and delicious pork scratchings. There’d been a fallow few years in terms of their visitations to the Punchbowl more recently, but they’d picked up again in the past year. Crowley clearly thought he’d done so quietly, but Aziraphale knew he’d used a shell company to purchase the pub off that Ritchie fellow.

He let the blinds fall back into place and followed Crowley upwards.

The third floor of the house held more public, practical spaces. The stairs ended on a landing. To the right was a wetroom of a volume that Aziraphale knew could accommodate a spread wingspan though he’d never quite asked if he could try. It had a loo to keep up appearances, though the significant majority of the time that housed a gigantic lush fern. To the left was the kitchen, which Crowley was currently loping across to disappear into the pantry-cum-wine-storage. He was humming under his breath, resonating happily. Aziraphale smiled at his back.

“White,” he called.

“On it.”

Crowley’s kitchen was not to his personal taste—too angular, too much chippable black marble—but it did have its merits, particularly for entertaining. Aziraphale had eschewed the significant majority of Crowley’s parties over the decades (difficult not to thwart when presented with so many wiles), but there had been some memorable occasions. Like that time when they’d all gathered around the telly and the music had been hushed at eight for the landing. Then hours later, all of them drunk and incredulous—angel and demon and mortals—because a human was _walking on the moon._

At one end of the long countertop a prickle of cacti clustered in pots; at the other were a collection of mysterious black-and-chrome appliances that changed every few years or so. Aziraphale liked to maintain the fiction that these trendy, single-use machines perplexed and offended his sensibilities, and that something called a Ninja Bullet was surely more suited to one of his Soho sex shop neighbours than to producing anything edible. Mostly, however, this attitude was so he could make a production out of thwarting their influence by making elaborate cuisine in the demon’s modern cooker. He loved his own Aga, of course, but sometimes you needed a reliable fan oven to bake a decent French meringue.

The hiss of released climate control, and Crowley poked his head around the corner. “Nyetimber?”

“Mmm. Lovely.”

Crowley rolled his eyes, but his smile was fond. “Must be, you drank me out of it already, angel, and I swear I had a case.” He left two bottles on the counter. “Grab what you want and send it up, yeah?”

There was the low sound of another wall shifting, and the syncopation of his heels on the next stairs.

Aziraphale opened cupboards until he found one that obliged him with a bowl of beautiful sugared almonds. The refrigerator offered a cheese-board. He put this collection of diversions together with the wine into the dumbwaiter. The antique cabling had long rotted away, of course, but a little friendly encouragement sent it upstairs anyhow.

The air pressure changed as he climbed the sunlit staircase. Nothing a human would perceive beyond an ache in an old knee injury, but enough to forecast that here was where Crowley _really_ lived. When he emerged from the landing it was into a large rectangular space, double-height. One wall with a sampling of Crowley’s art collection. A sunken living room upholstered in the same muted charcoals as the walls. Troublingly comfortable too, to the point that Aziraphale thought he had spent just as much time snoozing here in the past year than in his own home.

The low three-sided sofa construction was on just the right level to rest one’s wings behind. He couldn’t deny a smidgen of envy; he loved his bookshop, but it was impossible to indulge there without making a mess like Crowley had in the workroom. It was appealing to imagine a space such as this one, where he might breach the dimensional boundaries, kick back with a sherry, and stretch out the old feathers.

Humming now himself, he ducked under a hanging plant into the big, open space in time to see Crowley disappear behind the lacquer screen on the far side. A moment later the new scarf flung over the edge, and Crowley re-emerged. Gone was the merchant banker’s charcoal suit. It had been stunning, yes, but Aziraphale felt that today it had been a costume for effect. Not entirely what he’d choose for Crowley if he’d—well. Here he was now in pyjama trousers to match the sofa, a black vest and the rather fetching silk dressing gown embroidered with parrots that he had always admired for its familiarity as one of Crowley’s old favourites. Seeing him so comfortable made him feel happier, even if it also made him feel fluttery and a bit off-kilter.

And, if the demon was making himself at home, Aziraphale could shuck to shirtsleeves. He folded his jumper and set back his cuffs. When he looked up, it was to Crowley deliberately surveying him with the same interest he’d shown to the art, earlier.

“Oh, tosh. Nothing you haven’t seen already today,” Aziraphale said, “do rustle up the wine, please.”

Crowley’s snap had the wine and nibbles appear on the low central table. In the flutes, sparkling bubbles on their rise were lit by the sun that slanted in the west windows. All plate glass, the view over the rooftops was broken by the lime trees in Hyde Park, gusting autumnally; stories below was a shared garden that Crowley made endless pointed comment on but didn’t shift himself to engage with. (“I have my hands full of temperamental rarities in here, I’m not mucking about growing things on London clay, you goose.”)

He took the proffered glass in exchange for handing over his jumper to be sent...somewhere. He found he didn’t much mind. His thoughts, which had been tethered to a sequence of pleasures and errands over the course of the day, found they were free to sit gratefully and sink back into the cushions.

“Cheers, angel,” Crowley said, but stayed standing. “Make yourself comfy, don’t eat all the Yarg, do eat all of those almonds. I’m going to—”

He waved an arm out to the greenery surrounding the room, his robe flashing open to a coppery lining.

“Don’t mind me at all,” Aziraphale said, reminding his notebook and his pocket telephone to be at hand rather than in his coat downstairs. “I’ve a few guesthouses to arrange in advance.”

“That’s blessedly considerate of you.” Crowley tipped back a mouthful of wine and lifted the glass up to the light. “Bugger it, I’m going down to the vineyard next week to rustle up more of this and maybe it’ll last longer while you’re away.”

That would simply _not_ do. “I’m certain it’s better drunk in company, my dear,” he countered, and tucked away some Benevolence in the space between them, enough to make Crowley frown at his glass suspiciously. Champagne went better with a dash of Grace, a splash of the occult improved a merlot. 

“Are you _persuading_ me?” The demon’s eyebrows rose. “Again?”

“You are always on at me to do proper magic,” Aziraphale said, as ever knowing he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Now attend your watering and let me get on with the last of my tasks. I can’t simply turn up places that I want to stay. People might be put out.”

“That’s what the Almighty invented Premier Inns for.”

“I think that was Raphael.”

Aziraphale rang up a nice-looking little inn near York. He hadn’t stayed in a thatched cottage for a couple of centuries and he had high hopes for improved insulation and fewer rats. While he arranged lodgings for a few nights, he watched Crowley range about the room.

To one who did not know better, the helical movements might seem ineffective, but he had watched this particular circumnavigation many times before. Protective and attentive, wherever Crowley valued the most. He’d always felt amused and honoured by it, rather than stifled. And given their luxuriance, the plants clearly felt the same. 

Crowley, much more so than Aziraphale, was always growing something. Every plant would be seen to, spoken to, with appropriate levels of attention paid. Crowley _always_ paid attention to things that mattered.

As though to prove him right, when he hung up Crowley asked, “So, been thinking. Thoughts and Prayers, hmm? How’d you prefer I handle her if she stops round again?”

Aziraphale too had been thinking about this. “She won’t. She was curious, she saw what she needed to see. But if she does, and you can’t see your way to refuse her entry to the shop without confrontation, try to give or sell her a book.”

Both Crowley and an aspidistra did a satisfying double-take.

“What, one of your collection?”

“Don’t be absurd. Anything from the west corner of the ground-floor shelves.”

“Ouch, you must be annoyed she interrupted our meal—tempting her into a demonic transaction so early in her tenure.”

“She avoided the wine, but worth it to try again. The sooner she gets her hands dirty the better.”

“You’re something else, angel.” Crowley, his expression gleeful, sprayed the plant. 

Consultation with his notebook gave Aziraphale the name and number of an archivist at Durham Cathedral. He dialled and stood stretching as he waited for the pick-up. Of course it was past closing time on a Saturday, but any manuscript specialist worth their vocation would always be delighted to help out a fellow antiquarian.

Pleasantries undertaken, and with an agreement to visit special collections in negotiation, he started to rummage through the books piled down the far end of the sofa. Landscape and architecture; some were recognisably on his bookshop’s catalogue at one point, but others were brand-new technical manuals of the sort that interested neither him nor his customers. Crowley’s projects, then. 

“Until Wednesday then,” Aziraphale rang off, pleased at how preparations were turning out.

“You’ll never guess,” he called over, still eyeing the topmost volume on structural engineering. “I might finally get to sniff out the rest of the manuscripts they rammed in Cuthbert’s coffin.”

A snort from behind a glorious maidenhair fern. “So much for ‘taking the pulse of the nation’. I thought you were going walkabout to get in touch with your populace.”

The mild dig at his sincerity ruffled slightly. “I am. Lots of ordinary populace in old mining villages.” But that feeling was crowded out by a larger concern, and he needed to ask:

“Crowley, your—your refurbishment plans.”

“My plans?”

Direct questions were very much outside Aziraphale’s comfort zone, even now, and he wanted Crowley to help him out, as he always had.

“Your books here. Do come over and sit down, there’s cheese.”

Crowley set down his watering can and sauntered over to join him. He lowered himself into the sunken corner in a graceful descent of limbs.

Tilt of the head. “Yeeesss?”

No help then.

“Are you...? Where are you...what are you _doing_?”

“Ah, thought you knew,” Crowley said, stretching his arm out along the sofa to poke gently at Aziraphale’s shoulder. 

“I thought. You said a grass roof. I wondered if you meant the bookshop. But then, gardens. And cantilevers! I thought you were just remodelling?”

“Mmm. More like, just modelling. No re-anything.” Crowley’s expression wouldn’t settle, his eyes flickering from the pile of books to meet Aziraphale’s gaze and skittering off again.

Even if he hadn’t the advantage of angelic perception, the ancient anxieties that mustered around the demon were almost tangible. And Crowley’s drumming fingers signalled this was a work in progress, not yet ready for an audience. 

He could be patient. “Something new—oh, Crowley, how very exciting. You must keep me updated while I’m away. I don’t know how you’ll improve on this, though,” he gestured to their surroundings, stripped back and beautiful, painted dark but full of light and creation. 

“We’ll see,” Crowley said, gruff. “Barely started, quite good you’re away, lots of decisions. And speaking of decisions, more importantly, what if either of us runs into the new demon?”

While there’d been no sighting yet, of course there was a new demon, that wasn’t even in question. While Heaven had been content to allocate only one angel to Earth, there’d always been more than a few demons mucking about, though usually on opposite continents to Crowley.

“It depends, I suppose,” said Aziraphale.

“On?”

“Their intentions.”

Crowley sighed loudly and reached out a toe this time to prod him in the thigh. “They’ll be a _demon._ Just because you domesticated me doesn’t mean they’ll all be so amenable.”

He let _that_ pass, though he wrapped it up carefully to examine later. Instead he said, “Do promise me, Crowley, that you won’t get into a serious confrontation with either angel or demon without me there.”

Crowley’s yellow stare fixed on him. “Only if you promise me the same.”

“Hmm.” 

“Angel.”

“Oh fine, yes, alright.”

“You realise that by letting you leave this promise deliberately vague I’m trusting your judgement, _like an idiot._ I know you. See a new demon, offer them a cuppa. Smite them if they put the milk in before the teabag.”

Aziraphale put down his glass. “As though I’m the only idiot. I’ve seen the ends of your diplomacy, my dear, and when they run ragged you make quite the mess.”

“I’m sure you could play nice by giving them a few pointers. You’ve been in the tempting business nearly as long as I have, and judging from today, recently in practice too.”

He felt his cheeks heat a little. “I think we’ll be fine,” he said.

Crowley leaned back more deeply into the cushions, eyes closed. “Yes. I imagine we will be.”

After a long, cosy moment, he said, “There is one thing you can do for me while I’m away. I’d like you to look out for Anathema. She’ll be about; I’ve invited her to the shop. Let her have her head as long as there’s no harm.”

Crowley’s only reaction was to give him another prod with his toe, and Aziraphale knew he could safely leave such matters there.

The light faded outside. Crowley waved up a soft glow from hidden recesses as he leaned to pluck up a morsel from the board. 

On a last phone call, he watched the demon’s eyelids flicker as he savoured the strong cheese; the tip of his tongue swiped the nettle leaf and his eyes went wide and impressed. 

“And parking?”

Crowley looked up to grin at him, stayed regarding him, his focus travelling between hands and face as Aziraphale fixed the arrangements at the bed and breakfast.

“That would be perfectly suitable.”

Crowley shifted himself alongside, their thighs nudging, but said nothing. 

“I’m not sure what time I’ll arrive, no.” 

Crowley laid one hand on the back of the sofa. He turned, puzzled, and Crowley reached across to curl fingers around his wrist.

“Yes, I’ll be sure to ri-ahhHH—”

Crowley _licked him._

“—ring UP yesthankyougoodBYE—Crowley!” He tugged his arm away, reflex if nothing else, but the demon kept a grip and scrunched his face in confusion.

“What one was that again?”

Aziraphale shut his eyes. He didn’t have the gift for stopping time that Crowley did, but if it had been at all possible he would like to take the needle off the record for a few moments. Just a few. For what purpose, he didn’t know, but it seemed like that would stop any other involuntary yelps that a warm serpent’s tongue on his wrist might bring forth. 

Crowley let go of his wrist, but it was hard to shake off the gaze. 

“Nice squeak.” Small twitches played at the corners of Crowley’s mouth.

“Warn a being,” Aziraphale managed.

“It’s a bit different now,” Crowley said, running his tongue over his teeth and considering, like he was swilling brandy. “Pepper? All that misty rose has gone.”

Oh. The perfume.

“It’s called Savoy Steam.” 

Six feet of limber corporation swung legs and silk over his lap and settled on his other side.

“Well, if _you_ like it—”

Aziraphale pressed his teeth into his lower lip and held out his other wrist. “The Bewitching Yasmine.”

“These are fucking ridiculous names.”

“I nearly went for Heartless Helen. Oh! Mmm.” He watched as Crowley took the proffered wrist, brought it to his mouth. Took a long breath in his skin flushed under a wet stroke; tried to let that breath out quietly. No such luck.

“Hnngh.” A similar noise from Crowley, and in a quiet voice into his skin, “this is my favourite.”

Aziraphale tilted his head back to look up to the ceiling, drew in his shoulders on a shudder. “You approve.”

“Yasmine’s a babe. Coffee and dates in a cashmere blanket, she’s made for you.”

“More rose in the other.”

“Air freshener in comparison.” Crowley set down his wrist, the turned-up sleeve rucked up now. “Oooh, hey, what’s this?”

Another pivot of arms and legs, and Crowley’s knees planted either side of him as he moved to wheel back over. Aziraphale caught him in a decisive stop mid-straddle.

Partly to blame was the waft of the demon’s own basenotes (amber, and saltflats, and the needle of gorse before the flower). The faded light had turned dusk and metaphorical, and in a _frisson_ of panic and champagne Aziraphale remembered the shocking over-familiarity he’d felt when they had exchanged corporations to fulfil the prophecy. How Crowley’s body had been beloved and beautiful and overwhelmingly _confusing._ His thumbs tightened on the apex of Crowley’s hipbones before he forced himself to release his grip.

Crowley’s mouth quirked but thankfully he didn’t comment. He seemed pensive, though, as he slid backwards off his lap and onto the edge of the coffee table, no longer insinuating himself so completely into Aziraphale’s space.

For which he was grateful, and also...not. Some small aspect of this must have presented in his expression because Crowley’s smile widened. 

“Show me your art, angel.” He circled fingers around Aziraphale’s wrist again, pushing back the sleeve to his elbow and turning his arm in a slow twist, baring the private skin of his inner arm. 

So old now, these markings. The dove and her laurel branches were always visible, but the rest of the design—the world in outline, a branching tree—he hadn’t seen for a few hundred years. These indigo lines had resurfaced anew during the weeks he’d planned his journey.

Crowley traced a finger over the leaves that framed the piece, up to the crease of his elbow. His hands were cool against Aziraphale’s skin.

“This is from—oh, what was his name. Augustine? Six hundreds or something?” 

“Th-thereabouts. Oh, that tickles.” 

Lowering his head, Crowley raised Aziraphale’s arm, hissed a warm gust over the skin. “Thisss?” 

“Ahh—” The demon’s hand slid under his shirtsleeves and up, further up. Aziraphale clenched his twitching fingers into the soft fabric of the sofa cushions. “Be careful.” A band of crosses had reappeared too, even older, from the pilgrim trails between Jerusalem and Byzantium. He wasn’t overjoyed at that one. Aesthetically it was pleasingly primitive, but as a symbolic commentary on what kind of journey he had planned all these centuries later it was a bit presumptuous.

Crowley ignored the warning, and as his fingertips grazed the crosses he wrinkled his nose and pushed the sleeve up to look.

“Ha. I’ve done your blessed work for too many years now. A few bits of messiah graffiti only gave me a prickle.” Crowley shifted, knees knocking Aziraphale’s, contented creases at his eyes.

Aziraphale stayed in the moment, letting himself acknowledge that he wanted to touch, that he had done so, however briefly. That he was wondering now how he could think to leave for an unspecified time, when this was here, when his skin was being bared, traced, tasted. 

Crowley curled towards him, affectionate and curious. His mouth was soft, all curve and no edges, and Aziraphale found himself looking and unable to look away.

“Pretty,” Crowley murmured. 

The word was so quiet that he wondered if he had been meant to hear it. Crowley’s hands slid up his arms, up to his shoulders, where they pressed warm and steady, pushing him into the soft of the sofa. Touching him as they never touched, as though the demon couldn’t help himself on this evening before parting.

Was Aziraphale tempting again? If he was then he was ensnared by his own trap. He let his own hand drift, mirroring and greatly daring, to Crowley’s shoulders. That intoxicating solar topnote encircled them as Crowley’s spreading wings flickered into the room then away again. 

“Oh,” he urged, without thinking, “bring them back.”

Crowley only laughed, low and pleased. He sat up and away. “I have something for you.” 

Already, Aziraphale thought, you have given me so much. He was grateful for the pause. The fine strings breaching his corporation and his form were resonating from Crowley’s attention to his markings, and he needed the ordinary habit of a breath.

A small red package with gold lettering appeared in Crowley’s hand. “For fair winds.”

Inside the box a brooch lay against black velvet. The pin was rustic, tapered matte gold and the length of a thumb. At the top was a scallop shell, half-dipped in gold and fixed meticulously with a hinge and clasp.

He ran his thumb across the crenellations on the shell, the texture metal-cool and limestone-warm.

“How beautiful.” The gold was a honeyed yellow in the soft light, and the brooch felt familiar, like it was something he had treasured for millennia and misplaced a while. If his journey was to be a pilgrimage of sorts, it was right to have a badge, but he knew Crowley, and this would not be an abstract comment but rather something personal.

“You pocketed this,” Aziraphale realised, delighted, “in that tavern in Bristol, and I never could find another that matched half as well with the set.”

“Surely that gave you an excuse for always losing the game,” Crowley closed his hand over the pin and turned it in Aziraphale’s palm. The concave surface was all gold, highly polished to a shine.

“I’ve won many times since.” He watched as Crowley prised open the clasp. “You kept the shell, all this time.” 

“In the odds-and-sods drawer, with the string and the spare batteries. Hmm.” Crowley smoothed fingers over his shirt, tested the weight of the fabric. “Too fine, it’s meant for your coat.”

“Crowley. Thank you.” He took the brooch from him and set it on the cushion beside. “For helping me be on my way.”

A half-shrug of a shoulder. “No stopping you when you’ve got an idea in your head.”

“It’s just. This re-collection...this _recollection._ It won’t be, well, it won’t be _easy_ ,” Aziraphale admitted. “Already it’s been—”

“I know.”

“I imagine you do.” He linked their fingers together. Braiding them. Wanting the renewed contact. The channels of their digits ran together, broad deltas into their overlapping palms. Touching Crowley with deliberate intent felt like stepping from a stone into a running stream. Cool, encompassing, silken, relentless. He let the sensation envelop him, lap at his edges, until he had to bite his lip and release his hold once again.

Crowley was still. Listening.

“But what you don’t know is my pledge.” He reached down to brush his fingertips across the brooch. “I won’t hide from any of it. I have little doubt that the memories I’ve hidden will be difficult. Some will be, well, awful. Many will be, all these years later, simply confusing.” Self-deprecation felt tight across his face. He trailed off, searching for some humour. “I do hope a _few_ will be pleasant.”

Crowley shifted, then, like he might move away. Aziraphale grasped his knee, held him there in front, kept him from slithering away.

“I won’t hide from any of them,” he repeated. He found he needed Crowley there to witness that vow; as though Crowley’s constancy could be taken into himself to make up for his own cowardice.

Without cover, Crowley’s eyes were impossibly wide. “It’s alright if you do,” he said, his voice fierce. “If it’s too much.”

No, it’s not, thought Aziraphale. But he simply nodded in acknowledgement of how he felt. “Put the brooch on me, please.”

As Crowley’s hands moved on his chest, Aziraphale dared to stretch down to brush a light kiss across his knuckles. A delicate pause, before Crowley continued to stretch the fabric. Crowley’s hands stayed steady as he worked though little patches of copper-black scales rippled across the backs of his hands before shimmering out of sight.

“So,” Aziraphale said, once the pin was secure. He looked away, clearing his throat, searching again to lift their moods. “You’ve made me wonder. If I’ve domesticated you, what have you done to me over the last thousand years?” 

He glanced back in time to see Crowley flex his hand, an unreadable expression on his face. The demon rose from the table’s edge, his robe swirling behind him, and sank down onto the sofa beside Aziraphale, a little farther away than before. A snap of his fingers had the wine glasses on the table refilling to gratifying volume.

“Encouraged your feral nature, of course.” Crowley passed him his drink then toasted to the indigo lines of intent on Aziraphale’s arm. “Principality. To your voyage of discovery.”

Full of feeling, he raised his own glass in response. “And to your project, my dearest friend, may it be fruitful.”

Crowley seemed momentarily taken aback, before clinking with gusto. “Our ships at sea,” he agreed. “Smooth sailing, angel.”

  
  


**_End of Part I_ **

  
  


### Authors' Notes

 **Cipollini  
**Mario Cipollini, professional road cyclist and flash bastard. Like many retired sportspeople, he flogs off his own eponymously-named high-spec [bike range](https://www.mcipollini.com/en/biciclette/).

 **Crowley’s sunken living room  
**Do a google image search for modern sunken living rooms. You will immediately want one.

 **Nyetimber Estate’s English sparkling wines  
**What your authors like to [drink](https://nyetimber.com/our-story/) at Christmas when we’re feeling patriotic and there’s no Chapel Down Bacchus at the local.

 **Pilgrim markings  
**Wait for the next chapter and you’ll get the full story.

 **Punchbowl, The  
**A very [old pub](https://www.punchbowllondon.com/) in Mayfair, perfectly located to be a haunt of celestial beings and laddish noblemen in search of a tipple since 1729. Owned for a bit (the bit where Crowley found another local) by Madonna and Guy Ritchie.

 **Scallop shell brooch & pilgrim badges  
**Aziraphale has a very old collection of [pilgrim badges](https://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/group/19998.html). The gift of a new badge—a [scallop shell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_Santiago#Scallop_symbol) from the angel’s past on the eve of his departure on a modern-day pilgrimage—is a deeply meaningful symbol of Crowley’s respect.

 **White’s  
**The OG [gentleman’s club](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White%27s), still in fact a gentleman’s club as if the world had a shortage of places for men to hang out or something. Established in the 1690s on Chesterfield St, it’s now in St James, should you be passing and feel like lifting a middle finger.

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 7

[Tessellate](https://open.spotify.com/track/1EbacZvcixTCTzBcJfaua2?si=XeoSKsCGTo-2KUCI8zBJng)  
alt-J

[Futures](https://open.spotify.com/track/7m3Tbsn12hbBnsFHR6O4U7?si=b_G9AQxGTlWSENcuUf-gjg)  
Zero 7

#### Perfume

[The Bewitching Yasmine](https://www.penhaligons.com/the-bewitching-yasmine-eau-de-parfum/), by Penhaligon  
Aziraphale at Crowley's Mayfair house

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/617723681092812800/planning-permission). In which, we describe our bricollage view on living spaces.


	8. To the North, October

####  _Part II_

#### Constantinople, 595

“You now, Azir,” said Philo, wincing as he held a cloth to his forearm, blood seeping through. “We can see you’re no stranger to the needle with that arc of laurel on your wrist.”

Aziraphale looked around the small room, where their companions were leaning back with pinched expressions, or leaning forward, elbows to knees in attitudes of discomfort. His fellow pilgrims had suffered all the privations of walking from the Holy City to Constantinople, week after week, and little complaint was heard. But one hearty meal and a visit to the baths and their stoicism faded as the commemorative _signa_ was pricked into skin.

And quite right, too, he thought as their sartor passed his iron needle through a flame. That would hurt, no matter the fortitude of the man or man-shaped angel. Aziraphale decided he would prefer something a great deal sharper when it came to his turn, and the blunted tip took notice.

Philo sat beside him at the low table and pushed back Aziraphale’s cloak, taking his wrist and baring it for the ink. The young man’s actions were proprietary and confident, as befit the self-anointed leader of their small band of pilgrims. Now halfway to Rome, Aziraphale suspected they would lose two more of their number here to the chaos of Constantinople. Likely Philo too would suffer a crisis, and to keep him on track for his bright future the local angel might have to deploy a strategic bit of Grace or ecstasy. 

The way Philo’s fingers lay warmly over his arm, Aziraphale strongly suspected the latter wouldn’t be unwelcome.

The sartor proved a tolerable artist, the dove in flight a graceful likeness even as the needle’s depth pierced through the defence of Aziraphale’s corporation. He kept his mind off it by attending to the more mortal discomfort of the men in the room; the Balkan wine with their meal had been unusually strong, and they sighed with its relief. 

Philo took the staunching cloth and doused it in vinegar as the sartor paused to refill his bowl of charcoal. “You bear pain without much remark,” Philo frowned. “Even Fat Shimon was grimacing by now.”

He was ready to say more, but Aziraphale turned his arm for him to catch the blood, and murmured, “Bless you.” 

The distraction washed contentment across his companion’s face, and the sartor continued on the second wing. Aziraphale watched the man at work. He _could_ let his body have the intensity of the needle and the ink. He’d no issue with a small amount of earthly suffering—it was very good for understanding human motivations, as was a close familiarity with earthly pleasures, all the better for the fulfilment of Divine instructions. 

But...there was an unearthly feeling about this emporium and he’d rather keep his wits about him. He’d briefly wondered if he might run into the demon Crowley here in the always-warring city. This feeling wasn’t Crowley, though. There was something chilly and altitudinous about the air that intimated a visit from On High.

Though it was summer, the chill continued into the night. Their party gave thanks to the glory of God under the dome of the Hagia Sophia, and found lodgings at an inn near the eastern walls, full of travellers embarking the route to Rome.

Aziraphale waited until his friends were asleep in their attic, snoring and snuffling with the exhaustion they hadn’t allowed themselves to feel during their weeks of long walking. He sat at the window, encouraging the balmy sea air to breeze through the room, and let his gaze skim the rooftops as he considered the best place to intercept the heavenly messenger in the city.

Down towards the harbour there was a small pleasure garden, but on this balmy night there would still be people wandering the cypress walks. Better to head up to the hills.

He took the rooftops as far as possible, keeping senses open to any Presence. It was crowded and messy here in the stirpot of the Eastern Empire: the new religious hegemony still kicking over anthills of the old, the drama of the Adriatic gods still part of domestic life. In the space of ten human lifetimes the Messiah cult had gone from an oddball faction to a vast bureaucracy, and Aziraphale was still never certain how much these developments were part of anyone’s great plan, let alone the Almighty’s.

As he wound up the Olympia path, he saw the figure underneath a large magnolia tree. Hard to miss, resplendent as a rich merchant, blue robe trimmed with gold to match a turban of silk. And a bejewelled horn.

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale sighed. 

“You’re filthy,” the other angel intoned, while leaves overhead trembled and fell to the ground with the aural assault.

“Earthly voice, please,” Aziraphale winced, because you got used to a certain reduced timbre after a while away from Heaven. “And I’ve just escorted a group of pilgrims from Jerusalem on foot. A few splashes of mud is to be expected while doing the Lord’s work.”

“The point still stands,” Gabriel said with distaste, repositioning a silken tassel and ignoring Aziraphale’s pointed comment. “You of all beings should keep up appearances. No matter, you’ve a new assignment. This,” he waved an arm down at Constantinople, “is all ticking along nicely. We’ve something more challenging for you up north. You remember Britannia—weren’t you there recently?”

Aziraphale’s heart sank at the memory of damp armour.

“Not terribly effective though, were you?” Gabriel pressed, because he never sugared his words when he could salt them. “No matter, chance to get it right this time. One of our reps in Rome—Gregory, top guy—he’s got this idea for a mass conversion, and he’s sent off a party of monks. We thought a little extra assurance on this one would be just the thing.”

Two summers passed by the time the ship landed at Ebbsfleet. A year of to-and-fro through Frankish kingdoms; of turning back when a prince died and letters from the Pope to go forward again; of life in water-coaches along the Rhone. Aziraphale learned the new Gaulish dialects and practiced his Umbrian. He studied the Kentish queen’s letters to better know the changes in the Saxon tongue since he’d been in the Holy Land.

The two-score company were a curious mixture: some were the Pope’s own priests and monks, more adept at sweet-talking the local nobility than hauling provisions up onto a cart. Augustine himself was middle-management material, an excellent organiser and well-read enough for a decent conversation when the winds were fair on the river. Yet he was rather bereft of the imagination or holy fire that Aziraphale had supposed might impel a man away from his Priorship of a nice Roman monastery. Particularly when the snows came. Particularly when the company was stuck in the chilly keep of a castle under the rather dubious hospitality of the Merovingian king. 

They were reduced in number by the time they reached the northern coast. For all the pious accommodation of one Frankish lord, the next was hostile, and the third had no patience or gruel for over-educated bishops with soft hands. Those whose faith wavered in their mission found a monastery in Tours to take them in, or else a letter to divert them back to Rome, if they bothered to excuse their departure at all. Augustine spoke of his plans: the Kentish king a genial host to gods old and new under the direction of his Christian wife, the Benedictine abbey to establish, the rumours that the Northumbrian king might welcome the monks, and the uncounted threat of the pagan Britons in the west.

The snows were a distant memory as the company sweated their way up the Wantsum Channel. A quickened pace for the mission in the last stages, and rather than wait for a proper sailing vessel to cross from France, Augustine had piled the monks and bishops and interloping angel into a handful of plank-built rowing boats. 

Aziraphale was not the only member of the company to look askance when an oar was handed to him, but the seas were calm and from the sandy port they could see the Brittanic coast. Fine conditions or no, it was a long day at the pull, meditative in the same way as walking the pilgrim routes, and his companions fell silent into the rhythm within the hour. After noon James the singing-master roused them in plainsong. Despite his dwindling patience with the mission, the tired beauty of the company’s chorus drew power unbidden from Aziraphale, and the pull of their oars went swiftly all the way to shore. 

#### York, present

The shop windows were beginning to fog against the late afternoon damp, and the air was sharp with acetone and conversation. Squashed down beside several women of varying generations, Aziraphale found himself content to let the scents and sounds of the nail bar wash over him. 

He’d intended to reacquaint himself with the circuit of the York walls when impulse and looming rain clouds had him ducking through the nearest doorway. Always, at the outset, a plan was but a hopeful thing, an outline towards a destination; it was up to him to sketch in the detail. On his first day, he felt duty bound to let that detail emerge through happy chance. In any new settlement, he’d always headed straight to where its inhabitants congregated, and what better place than somewhere such as this? The walls had been there in one form or another for nearly two millennia and could surely wait his inspection.

“Y’alright, love?” The shop manager beckoned him up and forward.

“Shellac, please.” 

The row of tables were busy with activity, only one chair free. On the other side, two men and a woman, face masks on, alternated keystrokes to their pocket telephones with quick, expert strokes of varnish to nails. He sat down, carefully placing his coat on the chair, and nodded to the woman to his right. She gave him a disinterested smile but obliged by shoving over the wheels of colour samples with her free hand. Her other, emerging from under the lamp, caught his eye.

Long acrylic nails, curving slightly, painted a vivid coral.

“Holiday tomorrow,” she confided. “Mallorca. Leaving the kids with Himself, off with the girls.”

“How lovely for you. I’m sure you’ll have lots of sun.” Indeed, it would be unseasonably excellent weather. “Actually, I’m travelling myself.”

“Not much sun here.”

“There’s other recompense.”

Opposite, a shift: musical chairs timed to the buzzing of the dryers. A man dropped into place and Aziraphale held up his hands for inspection. Clinical, but the touch of skin-to-skin sent his mouth dry as he remembered the saturating ache of such contact with Crowley. 

While he submitted to the filing, his neighbour inspected her own nails for hardness before departing. He listened in on the chatter to his other side. Three women on a birthday outing, each getting the same taupe—a dull mushroom that brought to mind the boardrooms in Heaven. It was a strange mismatch with their lurid discussion of the club they were heading to that evening. Yet, then again, no more so than the red-blood discussions that had often stained Heaven’s neutrals.

“Colour?”

Well, certainly not taupe. He skimmed the wheel again, settling through habit on the paler shimmers. There was a matte gold that had the same finish as his beautiful badge. He glanced down at his coat, taking in the coruscating lines of the scallop and remembering Crowley’s long fingers and dark nails as he’d pinned it to his shirt. Then he looked beyond the neutrals and summer pastels and the party glitters.

“That one.”

Another cycle, more musical chairs. The woman who took up his hand next brought with her the little bottle he’d requested. _Celestial_ , read the label. With every brushstroke his nails deepened to a glossy, silver-shot blue. With a magnet, she drew the metal filings in the polish cleverly into a gleaming cats-eye sheen. 

A bubble of pleasure, a memento, an avatar of all which awaited his return, and a reminder of what brought him here—dirty nails crusted with the mud of the road but subverted to twenty-first century modernity.

She gestured for him to switch hands under the dryer. 

Gossip welled around him: about the high street, which shops had closed, whether the M&S was expanding, did you see the film, what cocktails are we having tonight?

Aziraphale leaned over to the birthday celebrations. “I wish you all the best for your coming year. Please, let me treat you.” He winked at the three of them. “If I see to your nails, more drinks tonight instead, yes?”

As he settled up he did a surreptitious mental rummage for any further small kindnesses. A customer waiting for infills suddenly found herself remembering an urgent errand, and his nail artist was freed for a bedtime video-call with her daughter in Hai Phong.

“Thank you,” he called out to the shop at large. 

The ripple of his passing had already been absorbed by the ebb and flow of business. No one looked up but for the woman at the counter. She gave him a toothy, tired grin as he pulled on his coat and put away his wallet. “Ta-ra, love. Come again.”

The inn was as delightful as advertised. Having dropped off the Bentley and his baggage earlier in the day, it was mere pleasure to walk into the welcome of the lodge and make his way up to his room.

It had been the restaurant and the thatch that had caught his eye originally for his first posting stop. The room he’d chosen to be free was small, but with an enticing peculiarity: a rope-slung bed piled high with linen, and looking inviting enough that even he could imagine cosying down to sleep. 

The staff had obligingly taken up his handsome, new carry-all. He unpacked enough for the two nights of his stay, changing his jumper for a lighter weave and his cologne for a tobacco scent. Both would hold their own against the roaring fire he was looking forward to encountering in the dining room across the courtyard.

Aziraphale’s table for dinner was positioned near enough to that fire to get the benefits but not too near as to be stifling. The atmosphere was beautifully autumnal: exactly the right sort of metaphorical exhale when summer was truly over, and with the realisation the encroaching winter might not be all bad if the nights drew close in places such as this.

With the restaurant renowned in the area, neighbours sat amongst the overnight guests. Conversation buzzed and glasses clinked as he settled in for the seasonal tasting menu. The game dumplings were superb, and the matched wine made him reconsider his previous stance on Greek reds—perhaps three thousand years was long enough to re-interest his palate.

Over port and truffles, taken from the restaurant proper to the cosy leather armchairs by the fire, he struck up a lively conversation with two local men. The talk ranged from the beautiful game (though Aziraphale had learned over the decades never to admit to the team he _actually_ supported), to the North-South divide in the political landscape. He’d been prepared to steer it away from the mess of unfinished international trade deals should they arise, simply to avoid indigestion after his meal, but he wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to tread there. 

At half-past two, he used his pocket telephone to send a photograph of his fingertips, resting against the pages of his book. Three hours later, a chime, and a text from Crowley.

_sparkly x_

Breakfast was well-appointed and proportioned, and eaten around an enormous communal table with all the night’s guests. He met a charming couple from Scotland, who tried their best to tempt him up to Edinburgh and farther. There was a backpacking retiree from America, keen for local intel; a young family with bloodthirsty children eager to visit the Viking Centre and the York Dungeon; the landlord also sat with them to break fried bread.

Replete and refreshed, Aziraphale headed back into York proper for more reconnaissance. As suspected, the remains of the wall were still standing and seemed unconcerned he’d sloped off to have his nails done rather than pay them a visit. But oh, how lovely it was to see them again. Perhaps it was in his nature, having guarded the very first, but he’d always loved all that city walls symbolised. Crowley would say— _had_ said—that such walls kept in, caged, were meant to be broken down. Aziraphale knew that was only part of their story. Walls such as these locked in, but nothing in God’s creation had ever been truly contained. These walls curled like a protective embrace around their populace, but they also let them spill out beyond. Countless of each century’s less desirables had settled against the wind-break of the walls, but those folk had been no less York. The walls were the veins that ran through the heart of the place and its people; walls were both boundary and protection. 

And, more to the morning’s enjoyment, their stone highways made for a jolly good self-guided elevated wander. 

Slowed by such thoughts, Aziraphale paused by Micklegate Bar, watching from above as a waitress tidied tables at a streetside cafe. He was distracted briefly by bright laughter drifting over from the children playing nearby; when he glanced back, it was to the old city not the modern.

“Ah. Blast.” He blinked repeatedly until his vision settled as it should.

At some point over the centuries he’d grown so immune to the layering of London’s streets that he stayed firmly in the present day. Here, away from his well-worn paths, Eboracum and Eoforwic and Jórvík were apparently as clear and close to the surface as York. The overlay was disconcerting. In the seventh century, when he’d first visited, the city had bustled with its own political and economic importance. All very stimulating, and fine for a peek backwards. Earlier, though, and the Vikings? Aziraphale shuddered, determined to avoid the bloodier parts of the walls.

Afternoon tea was at Betty’s, of course.

Over dinner, he met a couple on their honeymoon, so effervescent with joy and love that it overfilled his Self to the point where he was barely able to eat mortal food. He sat instead at their table, and channeled much of it carefully back to them, blessing their lives and their love and the children they were yet to have. The rest he saved within himself, shared as their gift, for the journey to come.

And come morning, he didn’t linger for breakfast. Instead, Aziraphale loaded up the car and left before dawn, answering a pull to the road he didn’t question.

The Bentley devoured the miles over the moors, clearly eager to keep stretching her cylinders after getting a taste for it on the M1 up north. Aziraphale enjoyed driving, though in London he’d rarely seen the need for it once the tubes were dug. With one hand lightly resting on the leather-clad wheel, and the other adjusting the player to a jaunty volume, he felt confident in thinking that he was a dab hand at driving too. Despite lacking the practice to sidle a twelve-foot chassis into a six-foot parking space. 

“We’ll work up to parallel, my dear,” he reassured her. “I know how vicious those National Trust car parks can get, even in the off season.” 

Music, as he tapped his nails against the leather-clad wheel. The early-morning traffic flowed to the beat, and the bebop played on.

Grateful for the tread on his new boots, Aziraphale leaned into the wind as the trail steepened in the last ascent. The view from the Topping was always spectacular, but he’d never been at dawn. He wasn’t the only one to make the climb for the sunrise: there were walkers with poles and serious moor-hiking gear; a young man with a yoga mat, earnestly folding through his sun-salutations on a flat outcropping; and two women with babies and looks of exhaustion.

“Good morning,” he greeted the women, nodding at the tangle of blankets and pushchairs. “And well done on marshalling that lot up. Let me know if you want a hand down? Always trickier on the scree.”

One of the women bounced the baby on her hip and laughed. “Oh, we’re living here now. This was the worst mistake we’ve ever made. Never getting down—”

“We’d love a hand, if that’s no bother,” said the other, tweaking her friend’s hat. “Bloody idiot idea to bring the bubs up weren’t it—ooh, Anna look,” she trailed off as the light shifted to gold in the distance.

The group stood in silence as the sun rose out over the edge of the moors. A memory surfaced in his mind, ancient and untethered to dates. On this island, maybe even this moor: a small group, cloaked in flax and fox fur, a pair of elk antlers raised to the sky as the sun struggled to breach the horizon. Midwinter, then. A figure with a pendant of shale stone, cutting the throat of a hare over a burning pile of barley, as if the Almighty might turn the seasons after a sacrifice of lunch and ale. 

Aziraphale thought again about that primeval moment as he drove into Durham, the castle and cathedral on the hill arresting in the morning light. He couldn’t recall anything earlier from Britain, and that memory itself jumbled in with others whose sequence through time was too slippery to grasp.

He found a likely spot for the car—happily, angle-parking—and made his way to Framwellgate easy enough by feel. The centre of this old city hadn’t changed much: almost an island created by the loop of the Wear, the steep hill a perfect site for defense, the narrow streets curving back on themselves with odd alleyways and flights of steps down to the river. The sensation of overlaid time wasn’t as vertiginous here as in York, but the sight of empty shopfronts and discount merchants didn’t sit well with him so early in the morning, so he took the steps down to the Riverwalk and the back circuit up to the Cathedral. 

Plenty of joggers out, students on their way to university, dog walkers, parents and little ones. A rough sleeper was huddled in a small tent, staring out at the river, not yet alert enough to do more than grunt at passers-by. Aziraphale left them a cup of tea and two tenners for the shelter, and a strong suggestion to the tent to improve its insulation.

Up South Bailey and the side path, and the splendour of the Cathedral’s pale Romanesque features made him stand a little straighter. While he had only a passing interest in the details of architecture, a thousand years of belief seeped into the foundations of such a building, and he could feel it as a gentle warmth under his feet.

A morning shift of tourists was disgorged from a tiny bus. They traipsed across the green in front of him, gathering in front of a billboard. A closer inspection related the success of recent renovations to the central tower. As people looked up and around, taking photographs, the sun shone majestically through a break in the clouds. Aziraphale let a bit of history cloud his vision: sculptors at work on the bosses, the humbled folk from the almhouse processing dutifully over to prayers, the chaotic politicking here during the Civil War. He took his own photograph, a close-up of the weathered sandstone pillars at the entrance, and sent it to Crowley.

_What’s your earliest memory on this island?_

He typed it and pressed the little paper plane before he lost his nerve to ask such a personal question.

Through the main entrance, with the curious door knocker shaped like a dragon. Distracted by watching the message send, he was jostled towards the baptismal font. Visitors craned their necks to exclaim at the vaulting soaring above them. He slid his pocket telephone back into his coat, and set off to do some wandering and wondering of his own.

“We spoke on the telephone on Saturday.” Aziraphale said to the librarian an hour or so later. She shuffled two archive boxes to her hip to shake his hand. “Here for Cuthbert, absolutely unoriginal.”

She gave a small shrug. “He and Bede bring in the punters, can’t complain. You mentioned you had a manuscript for us to look at as well?”

“Seventeenth-century local musings on the new-fangled Anglicanism. Provenance checks out, but you don’t seem to have it in your catalogue here and I thought I might donate it if it’s any use.”

“Good lord,” she said faintly, “that’d be awfully generous of you. You can have a selfie with Cuddy’s cross if you like.”

What Aziraphale really wanted was access to the extra-special Special Collections, but the head archivist wasn’t to be moved on that simply because a Soho antiquarian was doing a clear-out of his own collection. Even the spiritual equivalent of a hard nudge couldn’t convince her to open up the safe. A stubbornness to be admired, he supposed over tea and cake in the undercroft cafe. Stabbing his Victoria sponge, he wondered what tactic Crowley might take.

He took a turn around the cloisters and headed back through the crossing, stopping to chat with two women who were critically eyeing flower arrangements in the pulpit urns. Dahlia problems, they explained, the first of the autumn’s blooms that were shipped in from Holland, and nowhere near as reliable as their local stock. 

“Already dropping petals and it’s only Wednesday,” said another woman. The arrangement towered over her tiny frame as she stood frowning up at a cluster of yellow flowers, all nearly as big as her head but drooping precariously. “Bloody foreign growers—no, Joan, I know it’s not PC but it’s all robots in those Dutch greenhouses, you know.”

The local dahlias came from around the corner, an allotment-sized cutting garden that Aziraphale had not registered on his walk up the hill. 

“I’ll walk over with you to grab a few new stems, love,” said Joan, “I’m sure Neil would be happy to show you about.”

Head gardener Neil _was_ happy, especially after a cursory tour when he thrust a handful of triangular brown envelopes into Aziraphale’s hands.

“No sense walking past a seedpod what needs shaking, mate, make yourself useful.”

The garden was walled on three sides. An old glasshouse jutted out into the wedge-shaped plot, half-full with plants that needed overwintering inside. The two gardeners were joined by a few volunteers, all bent over to collect seed as Aziraphale had been instructed, writing the name of the plant on the envelope or calling across the beds to ask what something was. Some of the chrysanthemums had dried on the stem, and they tied on little scarves to catch the seeds before snipping the heads. The thistles down one row stretched to the height of the wall, stark and spiky against the sky. Aziraphale took a surreptitious picture of the silhouette they made, certain that Neil would be unimpressed if he didn’t fill his envelopes first. 

Tapping seed-heads and labelling packets made for a restorative afternoon, chatting in passing with the volunteers, most of them retired. When he marvelled at the size of some of the dahlias (“we don't call 'em dinner-plate for nothing”), a man told of his prize blooms, the welcome respite of a bright garden from working the local mines (“that’s when there was still work to be had, mind”). 

Handing over his packets to Neil, Aziraphale took a perch on a low bench and gratefully accepted a cup of tea from a battered old thermos. The clouds had rolled in, and his fingers had chilled as he worked. A trifle to will away, but an honest token of the most human sort of labour—flowers grown for beauty, the product of generations of curious tinkering with the natural world, more splendid than anything they’d come up with in Heaven. Well. Dahlia-wise at least.

Aziraphale blew at his steaming tea, and sent a little bit of that joy he’d siphoned off the night before into the slipstream of the breeze. As the heat rose from the chipped mug and warmed away his stiffness, his diffuse well-wishes flew like seed parachutes from a pappus and found fertile ground amongst the volunteers. And if the dahlias would be prize-winning in the next season, so much the better.

A buzz in his coat, and he realised he’d missed a few messages.

_why’d you ask?_

_defo don’t remember that sandstone being laid down_

_if that was what you implied_

_who in their right mind remembers the carboniferous period_

And then just now:

_stone circle-y times maybe?_

Aziraphale sent the picture of the thistles against the sky.

  
  


#### Northumbria, 7th C

No sooner had they landed at Kent and took posting in Canterbury did Augustine roll up his sleeves and go to work. The local king was speedily baptised. The new Archbishop instituted mass conversions to fill the churches. Aziraphale and two others were dispatched back to Rome. Pope Gregory—Gabriel’s top guy—was pressed for answers on the tedious details of doctrine, and Aziraphale could barely contain a sigh as he wrote out his parchment. He hadn’t known the carpenter from Nazareth personally, but he was pretty certain the young man wouldn’t have cared about monk’s haircuts or how to calculate the anniversary of his death.

Angles into angels, Augustine said. Back in Britannia, the northern king Edwin was more of a warlord than a courtly monarch, but he put on a good feast and reception for the missionaries of the northern expedition. In front of a host of counsellors and nobles, the monks took it in turn to convince the king and his pagan priest to convert to their faith. Aziraphale generally enjoyed the spiritual tickle of a baptism as much as any Heavenly being, but after a few decades of non-stop missionising one was much like the next. He sat at the back of the proceedings getting the gossip on Edwin from an courtier (“to and fro for an age on this baptism, and only now because of a want to be wifed”), but mainly lamenting the days of Roman influence in the region: vastly superior olive oil and wine. 

Another new king, and this one all too keen on the new faith. Oswald was ambitious and enterprising, uniting and expanding the northern kingdom, and Aziraphale was unsurprised when he invited missionaries all the way from Iona to establish a monastery on Lindisfarne.

Upstairs sent a note every decade approving his missionary activity on the Holy Island.

> PRINCIPALITY: Attend the young boy who tends sheep near Melrose Abbey. Give him a vision of the bishop’s death, he seems a bright lad. Uriel will see to the bishop.

> PRINCIPALITY: Heaven is bored with the fights over Easter. Flip a coin and get the clergy to agree one way or another. Pre-approval granted for the losers to be decreed heretics. Rooms booked at Whitby under Michael’s name. Usual _per diem_. 

> PRINCIPALITY: Again, purchase order for lapis lazuli denied.

At Lindisfarne, the scriptorium kept Aziraphale happy. The monastery chugged along, the changing strategic vision of each new bishop only a bellstrike against the gentle chanting of daily ritual. Translating, transcribing, and illuminating; the human kind of transcendental magic, a thought made eternal by stroking a line of charcoal onto calfskin. To tell a story into the future, outside of a moment. It was so beautiful, words and illustrations both. The ingenuity of his fellows in pursuit of colours amazed him. 

“The wasp lays her eggs, and the oak makes a gall around them until they hatch,” Olfrin explained to the novitiates milling about a stand of oak trees. “We mix the gall with rust-water for ink—yes, brother?”

“Even demon creatures have some use for the Lord’s work,” a new monk marvelled.

The new monk was an asset to the scriptorium. He couldn’t take a simple walk on the moors without coming back with a handful of lichen, ready to steam or burn or lay on wax in pursuit of some new colour. Eadfrith’s admiration for God’s creations in the air and forest bore fruit in his illuminations; his script was clear and flowing, and Aziraphale didn’t give a fig (oh, how he missed figs though) about the unauthorised benedictions he bestowed on the talented illustrator. He was content to watch the gospels take shape, to make excuses when Eadfrith burned too many candles to finish a capital, and to source the more exotic materials for colours. It was a particular yellow pigment that had Aziraphale cross paths with the demon for the first time in a couple of centuries.

“Alright, Aziraphale?” Crowley said, leaning back improbably on a stool in a crowded market, “Long time no wile.”

“Serpent,” Aziraphale said mildly, “Hugh the Dyer normally trades on this stall. You re-training? Business slow?”

Crowley spluttered, flailing for a second. “Wow, aren’t you holier-than-thou in those robes.”

“Don’t need the robes, dear. If you don’t mind, I’m after some orpiment. It’s yellow, makes an awful mess, smells a bit sulphurous. You’ll recognise it immediately.”

Crowley looked gobsmacked before he broke out in a delighted cackle. “Monastery politics are clearly rubbing off on you. That sort of zinger gets a thumbs up where I’m from.”

Aziraphale flushed. “You can’t possibly—”

“Quite probably can—look, help yourself, my two o’clock’s arrived—” Crowley stood and flung a cloak dramatically over his head. “Nice seeing you, angel,” he called, and that was that from Hell for another human lifetime.

#### Durham coast, present

A lunch of rather ordinary haddock and chips—the chippie proclaiming itself to be, of course, the best on the coast—but made something special by the sea breeze and the view out over the North Sea. It was hard to tell that the beach had spent two centuries as the slag heap for a coal mine. 

Aziraphale folded up the newspaper and threw the remaining chips to the lurking seagulls. Aware he was stalling, but not quite ready in his mind to make the next part of his journey, he took the south path down the beach through wildflower meadows. Most of the flowers were over besides the scabious, and habit had him bending to collect the few purple flowers that hadn’t gone to seed. _A strong purple is as pleasing to the Lord as gold_ , Eadfrith would say.

The afternoon light reflected reddish-gold from the sands onto the water. Anna on Roseberry Topping had been unimpressed at his photography and had walked him through how to use filters on his pocket telephone (“See? Silvertone’s great. You look like a fifties film star!”). Now his pictures were coming along nicely. He crouched down and zoomed in to focus on the red leaves of a last-gasp wild geranium, letting the seashore blur behind, then stood, stretching out his arms and his senses. The only humans around were a couple in the distance, circled maniacally by a dog off the leash, and the solitude gave him a rising sense of expansiveness. For the first time on his journey Aziraphale gave in to the strong desire to unfold his wings.

The sun and the wind felt glorious; a gasp stuttered in his chest and sank his heels deep into the sandy ground. The last of the goodwill from his York friends came untethered, and for a moment, the wildflowers around him thought it was spring.

October wound the day down too soon in the north, and he very much hoped the Bentley might save him having to double back on the walk. A test of allegiance—although whose and to whom he had no doubt Crowley would have his own opinion. Delightfully, she appeared at the southern car park. On the road again, before the beach approach turned off to Sunderland, he saw a man standing with a sign for Newcastle. Aziraphale slowed the car and leaned over.

“Would you like a lift?” He’d been about to add _young man_ , but the hitchhiker hoisting his rucksack had a silver-peppered beard and a creased smile.

“Oh my days would I ever, but I don’t want to get this bangin’ motor all grubbed up.”

“Quite alright, put the bag in the back. Newcastle, yes?”

“Or as near as, just a bit knackered.” Half-way to reaching for the door, he looked in the car at Aziraphale, then faltered, his hand falling abruptly to his side. “Wait. You—”

“Pardon?” Aziraphale frowned; the man’s dark skin had gone grey.

“Fuck, umm, _fuck_.” He stumbled away from the car, eyes all whites, bag swinging in front of him like a shield.

“Ah,” said Aziraphale gently, turning off the engine. “It’s all right.”

It had been many years since a human had recognised him. Even in London, city of millions, the folk who could glimpse something of the Divine usually thought they were hungover, or watching street theatre.

“R-really not alright—”

Aziraphale opened the passenger door then moved slowly and deliberately back to the driver’s side. “You’re welcome to wait for another ride, but you look like you’ve had a long day, and I _am_ heading your way.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” The man took a step forward, then froze. “Wait, why are you heading my way? You’re not—I’m not—?”

“Heavens no,” Aziraphale soothed. “I have no idea who you are. Merely passing through. I’m on, well. Personal business of sorts.”

The man blinked a few times, wavering, one foot on the running board, looking down the road as if to see his escape route then looking back as though he couldn’t help himself. “No, um, no holy message for me?”

“Entirely Radio 4 on the journey if you want,” Aziraphale tried to sound reassuring. The man sat gingerly on the blanket that had considerately made itself available. “Though I would say you look like you need a cup of tea. There’s a thermos under the seat.”

“Maybe I am. Dehydrated. I’m Pete, by the way. I’ll freak out over here for a bit, don’t mind me.”

“Not at all.” He settled himself back at the wheel, turned the motor.

“You’re an angel, or some sort of—”

“Angel, correct. I’m Ezra. And really, it’s fine, Pete. It’s fine.”

“Aw, man. Please don’t go all _Be not afraid_ on me.”

He laughed. “Noted. Though, could you shut the door if you’re staying? Makes it easier to drive.”

“Shit. Of course. Sorry.”

Aziraphale pulled the car away as slowly as the Bentley would let him.

“Crikey. Wish my nan was still around. She reckoned she saw spirits and whatnot. She’d be well mad about this.” Pete’s hands were shaking slightly as he opened the thermos, but he kept on. “So, uh, thanks for the lift, by the way, you can drop me anywhere—is it alright if I drink this—I mean, should I?”

“It’s only Darjeeling. Deep breath or two as well might help.”

“Ta. Fuck me, and I thought my girlfriend was joking when she said I was walking on pilgrim trails.” Pete leaned back, trying not to be obvious about the sidelong glances he gave Aziraphale. “She won’t believe this.”

“I rather think not,” Aziraphale said, as kindly as possible. “Best not to make trouble for yourself.” He kept on the quiet B roads until Pete’s hands were steady enough on his tea, then spoke conversationally, “I’m going to Newcastle because—and don’t laugh—I’ve not seen the Angel of the North and I promised my friend I would take a selfie.”

“Angel selfies.” Pete nodded, screwing the cap back on the thermos like this was an everyday occurrence. Aziraphale had seen this before: keep doing the normal human activity and maybe the giant shift in reality would make sense. Hagar had kept on filling her water vessel at the fountain in the desert when he’d appeared there too. 

“It’s not a statue of you is it? No, course not, sorry.”

“Apparently the artist modelled the body on himself, terribly vain.”

“Oh yeah.”

They turned onto the A1 soon enough.

“And your own journey?” Aziraphale shifted gears, narrowing his eyes as a hatchback passed him on the inside lane. “Where are you walking?” The rucksack Pete had put in the back of the car was of a decent size, and his boots were well-worn.

“I started in Scarborough to get in some of the Yorkshire Moors.”

“Lovely. I stopped there myself after a spot of hiking.” Still an excellent market, and a gift for Crowley already wrapped in the back.

“And Jo, my fiancee, she wasn’t far off about the pilgrim thing. I’m doing the two Saint’s Ways.”

Aziraphale laughed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but Heaven is with thee today, Peter. I’m headed to Lindisfarne after the Angel, if your feet need a rest.”

Pete was happy to talk about his trip. (“We’re from Cambridge now, but my dad grew up in the northeast, and he used to go on about his birdwatching on the Holy Island. It was the seventies though, I reckon he was just getting stoned with his mates.”) He insisted on taking proper pictures at the Gormley statue (“A bit to the left so it looks like the wings are yours”), as well as kindly tolerating Aziraphale’s attempts to master the selfie (“Send me that one so I don’t think I’ve hallucinated this”).

Crowley sent back a string of the crying laughing face at the nice picture that Pete took of them.

_Rude,_ he replied.

He sent their selfie to Anathema, who’d mocked his first attempt a few months ago. 

_Who’s the hottie get his number!_

_Done. But engaged, I’m afraid._

Aziraphale had planned to head straight to the island, but the tides were all wrong for the crossing that afternoon.

“Were you planning to drive on water?” Pete was clearly acclimatising to his celestial encounter through quite terrible jokes. 

“Hmmph.” Aziraphale tried to imagine what would happen if the Bentley’s chassis got even a smidgeon of saltwater damage, shuddered, and made the judgement that there would be a spare room at Pete’s B&B and two tickets to a nice show on at the Sage that evening.

Early next morning, he drove Pete out to a village called Heavensfield (“Should’ve known,” Pete laughed) and bid him safe travels.

“Might see you on the road,” Pete said, thumbing through an old Cicerone guide. It’d been his father’s, and Aziraphale could see the blanket of grief that sat a little heavily on his shoulders this morning. 

“Try not to get into a car with any other ethereal beings,” he said, clasping his shoulder with enough protection to ensure that wouldn’t occur. “May the rough ways be made smooth.”

After parking carefully in a spot far from any risk of flooding, Aziraphale set off on foot to take the path out to the island. The metalled pavement of the causeway road was wide and slippery, but much different than the trail he remembered so vividly. A lot more camper vans, for one. 

But the scent of it; the brine. The tarnished silver of the water as the North Sea stretched to the horizon. The thrill of pushing one’s pace, one’s luck, because one could never push back the incoming tide. That, that hadn’t changed.

He left a simple blessing in each of the white-timbered refuge huts elevated for safety along the way; _Be not afraid_ , indeed, though there was little he could do for the damp feet of fools who ignored tide tables.

With a few more hours of passability, in the off-season the way wasn’t crowded, but Aziraphale found himself in want of solitude. He chose the sandbanks where the water allowed, following the trail of staves and leaving the main thoroughfare to the humans.

The deepening season had brought vivid birdlife to share the sands. Migrating geese jostled for position. He rested, meditative, for a spell, and watched the terns dance in the downdrafts. There were no seals to be seen that day. A pity: he’d always taken a blasphemous delight that their sonorous honking and beatific expressions reminded him of Heaven. 

The sun continued its rise overhead, dull through the banking cloud but enough to shine the sky against the mud underfoot. A shag posed, her gorgeous spread wings an oil-slick demon-black. The tidepools ignored the fine leather of his boots.

An angel walked across water to the Holy Island.

Standing in his own domain in London, studying the cartography of his dominion, Aziraphale had felt his purpose and been sure of it.

Now, on this windswept shore, amid scrub and ruin, he felt only apprehension.

The memory pressed at him. It pulled him near, without his conscious understanding of where on this island it lay. Those in his shop, kept by words and leather binding, were tame in comparison; this memory, whatever it was, was feral, swollen. Demanding, with him so proximate.

He explored, for a time, letting other memories layer themselves across him like plate armour. The mount of the castle swirled up from the earth in a flurry of green moss and weather-rounded stone. When he came to the ruined Priory, he joined the thronging visitors. The rainbow arch soared with a fragility that took his breath away. Strength, at the edge of collapse. He carefully framed a photograph, but it captured nothing of the moment.

The pull came from the north.

He knew it on sight. A certain low boulder: nearly invisible amid the grass, and barely distinguishable from the rest. He came to his knees—that felt right, yes—and scrubbed away the lichen that covered its face. Rough texture under his fingertips; the outline of a celtic cross inscribed into the porous rock.

“ _Misericordia_ ,” he murmured, brushing his palm against the ground at the base. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them he held the box he had buried there in August of 793.

He took the box back to the Jekyll garden beyond the castle. Like the cathedral blooms, it had gone to seed, but the old kitchen garden walls enclosed it and he had need of their surety while he had none of his own.

A young girl was playing in a long bed of cosmos at the far end of the garden. The purple flowers waved in the breeze, bending near to the ground then bobbing back up. Her dark hair tangled in their stems. Her laughter carried.

The box was oak, lined with lead. It had not thought to rot, though the coloured decoration was long-faded. It sat, both light and heavy, in his lap.

The temptation to call Crowley was strong. To ring him, and let his wry, warm tenor tease away his nerves. But that was not the point; it could not be the point, though Crowley himself had offered him such absolution. _(“It’s alright if you do. If it’s too much.”)_

“I won’t hide from any of it,” he said aloud.

He knew what this memory must be, of course. But there was the knowing, and then there was the _knowing._

Aziraphale pressed his nail underneath the lid and prised open the box.

  
  


### Authors' Notes

**A nice-looking little inn near York**  
Thatched to be sure, but the [restaurant](http://www.thestaratharome.co.uk/) has a Michelin star, which Aziraphale thought a convenient way to choose lodgings. The authors can’t promise there’s a roaring fire in the dining room in reality, but Aziraphale wanted there to be one and so there was.

**Angel of the North**  
Yes, this is the second time we’ve mentioned [Gormley](http://www.antonygormley.com/projects/item-view/id/211). The authors have a particular fondness for large public sculpture. Just be thankful Circe hates Anish Kapoor.  
  
**Augustine’s mission to convert Britannia to Christianity**  
Also known as the [Gregorian mission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_mission), after Pope Gregory (“top guy!”) whose wheeze it all was. More broadly, this period of Anglo-Saxon history in the British Isles is super-fascinating; it was a time of change, migration and mobility and deserves much more respect. Don’t call it the Dark Ages.  
  
**Aziraphale’s favourite football team**  
He will never, ever tell. Crowley supports Chelsea, of course.  
  
**Betty’s Tea Rooms**  
[Ye olde scones.](https://www.bettys.co.uk)  
  
**Constantinople**  
The centre of the [Byzantine Roman Empire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire) at this time, with lots of money, people, and ideas flowing through. However, the sixth century had seen the Emperor Justinian try to restore the western Empire (and fail), a massive plague had wiped out 50 million people, and at the time that Aziraphale is playing tour guide between Jerusalem and Rome, the decline that would lead to the Ottomans taking over was just starting. Gabriel’s assurances were rather ill-informed.  
  
**Cuthbert’s shrine at Durham Cathedral**  
For work reasons Blythely has spent an inordinate amount of time in Durham and considers the [cathedral](https://www.durhamcathedral.co.uk) the moste sublime experience of ecclesiastical architecture in all England. Nothing compares to a visit, but you can wander around inside on Google Streetview. The shrine of St Cuthbert (locally known as “Cuddy”) once contained his coffin, in which a jewelled cross was discovered in the nineteenth century.  
  
**Dahlias**  
Enjoying a renaissance. Aziraphale likes a [Babylon Bronze](https://www.gardenia.net/plant/dahlia-babylon-bronze); Crowley prefers a [Chat Noir](https://www.gardenia.net/plant/dahlia-chat-noir).  
  
**Durham Cathedral’s cutting garden**  
As they’ve aged, the authors have grown exceptionally fond of the soothing properties of [BBC Gardeners World](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mw1h). Episode 30 of 2019 profiled this garden, the head gardener, and the flower arrangers (whose names we’ve changed). We don’t like to link to the Torygraph if at all possible (Aziraphale forgive us) but [this](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardens-to-visit/durhams-allotment-cutting-garden-heaven-earth/) is also a good description.  
  
**Holy Island; the Lindisfarne Priory and Gospels**  
Like other writers in this fandom, we are convinced that Aziraphale hung out in the [monastery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne) here while [Eadfrith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadfrith_of_Lindisfarne) wrote the famous [Gospels](https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/lindisfarne-gospels). Blythely would like you to know that she read a great deal of academic literature on the pigments used in illuminated manuscripts for this chapter and regrets none of it.  
  
**Lindisfarne Causeway**  
Overheard during the writing of this scene:  
Circe: [scowling at [causeway](https://www.dangerousroads.org/europe/england/7623-lindisfarne-causeway.html) schedules] This timing doesn’t work at all.  
Blythely: Oh my god, it’s the tide, it’s not opening hours!  
  
**Tattoos in Jerusalem**  
[Inspiration](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/inside-the-worlds-only-surviving-tattoo-shop-for-medieval-pilgrims) came from [Razzouks](http://razzouktattoo.com).  
  
**Topping, Roseberry**  
[Fine views](https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/roseberry-topping) across North Yorkshire.

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 8

[Dark Medieval Blues](https://open.spotify.com/track/4EVb8iiLdIuuimTA5SD3gn?si=o9T3MnUgRymFd8fXw3t4tg)  
Andrey Stanislavovich Vinogradov  
  
[Amazing Grace](https://open.spotify.com/track/0ol55yZ5sAdL0CnG8350VL?si=ylRhCutORHSd4nJf1hIH5g)  
Judy Collins

#### Perfume

[Feuilles de Tabac](https://www.millerharris.com/products/feuilles-de-tabac-eau-de-parfum), by Miller Harris  
Aziraphale dining at the Yorkshire inn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/618349110012018688/planning-permission). In which, we describe the pleasure of layering history and place across the story.


	9. South Downs, October

The bedding was scrappy and the season was only partly to blame. Crowley eyed the sparse, bobbing cosmos with a critical eye. The best that could be said here was that the trend for purple was well-carried through. The soil was heavy with clay; that would need to be improved, the sort of challenge to be relished. 

He prowled past with a sniff. Far too much privet at the boundaries. Easily dealt with and replaced with holly. He pictured the verdure, but bright with red berries. Much better. Striding up the drive, he noticed that a kidney-shaped wild-flower patch over on the lawn was working beautifully. In the brochure it had been a riot of colour and texture. Now it was mostly gone to bent stems and brittle poppy heads, but the odd splash of vibrant blue and red hinted at next summer’s glory.

Spinning round, he paused to take in the vista of it. Ivy-covered stone walls a gratifying distance from the house, enough to give a sense of space without compromising that feeling of enclosure. He could imagine them teeming with life in spring: birds nesting and mayflies starting their curious investigations. As if sensing the tenor of his thoughts, the local breeze picked up to say hello, tousling strands of hair that weren’t quite pulled up off his face.

He swatted away the gusts, watching them wend their way to rustle at the small stand of trees to the east. The property came with its own orchard, which was one of the details that had drawn him here to take a look. Brown husks scattered across the grass, picked apart by birds and creeping things, fermenting with a heady scent. He lifted a hand to gnarled wood and coaxed down one of the apples still on the branch. It fell obligingly into his palm: perfect paring size, and a medium-green with red blush.

He glanced at the little plaque hanging from the tree. _Crawley Beauty_ , he read, laughed, then took a juicy bite before tossing the rest for the garden.

Bustling, dirty, _demanding_ London felt another world away.

The estate agent was waiting for him at the door to the thatched cottage.

“You must be Mr Crowley,” she said with a broad smile. It was genuine enough, and why wouldn’t it be? He was a cash buyer, after all. “Alice Hepton from the Lewes office.” She produced a set of keys from her handbag, adding, “I saw your bike. That’s some piece of kit.”

He caught her professional once-over, clearly adding the value of his road bike to the designer thermal jersey he was wearing, to the way he’d kept her waiting at a price-on-application heritage property within reasonable part-week commuting distance of the City. Crowley adjusted his polarised glasses and gave her the posh arsehole smile she was expecting in return.

Exchange duly made, she tapped her manicure against the door.

“Solid oak,” she told him. “Cottage dates back to the fifteenth century. Was two originally, and that’s why you get such a liveable size. You’re tall, but there’ll be no stooped shoulders or bashed heads in these doorways. And with all the character you’d be wanting from a premium property like this.” She pushed open the door into an entrance hall cheerful with a thick flax rug. Richly varnished wood at the baseboards, as at the floorboards. The scent of beeswax polish. A ceiling that was close, but friendly rather than claustrophobic.

“Hmm.”

“Oh, Mr Crowley,” the estate agent said. “We’re just getting started. You’re going to _adore_ this little piece of heaven on the South Downs.”

He could imagine the office junior’s satisfaction at _that_ bit of copy.

The lounge was cosy, with an inglenook fireplace of such a volume as to roast a half-boar if an angel were so inclined. The walls were cream, with good choices in table-top lamps; the sofas and soft furnishings pushed matters north of the twee-line. 

“Kitchen next!” she sang out. “Wait until you see the storage space!”

An Aga-nising time later, they were upstairs. 

“So, you’re looking to relocate?”

“Mmm.”

“Just you?”

No. Or what was the point. “Together.”

There were three bedrooms, all of a decent size. The one with the eastward-facing window could be a study. A view over the walls to the gently swelling hills beyond; morning light and a bit of fine mist on the grass. He opened an app and tapped out a note.

“Ah.” She glanced for a ring, took in his black nails against the top-of-the-line phone. “You and your—?”

“Angel.”

“Your _angel_. How lovely.” She gamely continued despite his deterring glance. “You’ll be impressed by the bathroom,” she said. “En-suite off the master bedroom, with a very large tub.” She winked at him.

Crowley ignored that, because to have noticed would be messier for both of them than he had time for. The tub _was_ large, though of more interest was the large leaded window, letting in plentiful midday light even on this cloudy day. The broad expanse of wall was begging for a rude mosaic. 

“Hmm.”

They headed back into the hall.

“See what I mean about the size of this place? I’ve had so many viewings.” A sly pause as she checked for a reaction to the prospect of competition. “Everyone’s been so delighted at how much _room_ there is. While still being cosy, you know? There is some development potential, but it’s not really needed.”

“Ah.” _Buggery_. “Permits?”

“Planning permission is a real faff here, but don’t let that dissuade you. Some things are possible—that’s how they got the garage in. The devil’s always in the detail!” Without pausing for breath, she asked, “And what’s your line of business, Mr Crowley?”

The simple question hid an entire cascade of follow-ups; each bifurcating at the point of “Can I get him to drop a million quid yet?” Humans were generally amusing, but humans selling something were even funnier.

“Similar to you, I imagine,” he said, lengthening his steps back down the stairs enough that she had to scramble to stay apace. “Show people things they don’t even know they want, then convince them to spend more than they can afford.”

“Oh. Um. And...your partner? Able to work from Sussex? The property has high-speed broadband—isn’t it marvellous to live in the past but to enjoy the amenities of modern-day living?”

Crowley had his own opinions about the type of people who expected twenty-first century amenities from a fifteenth-century cottage.

“And here’s the second reception, one of the oldest parts of the original.”

Crowley tuned out the enthusiastic commentary and canted himself back to look up. Misleading wide-angle photography on property websites was one the humans had dreamed up for their own misfortune, but he’d long been a connoisseur of the genre and had a keen eye for actual proportions. He was nonetheless happy to see that the beams crisscrossing the ceiling were as promising in reality as they had been rendered in pixel.

Eight joists on the perpendicular—long and sturdy and stained dark with age—and a massive central beam holding them all in place.

“Yes, aren’t they special? Apparently part of the original building, made from the mast of a shipwreck.”

“I’ve heard. Oi, did you see that?”

She turned on cue to look out of one of the casement windows, and became fascinated with absolutely nothing.

At his nod, the footstool crept over. Crowley stepped up and cast a critical eye across the span of the beam. At first examination the oak seemed to be in good nick. Scarred by time, but weren’t they all? Some lovely faint graffiti—from a long-dead sailor? A once-child of the household? Aha, was that a bore-hole? He rapped a fist against the underside, and listened closely. Rapped again, a little further along. No sound of woodworms; only an old knot, then. He gave the entire set up a once-over estimate, took a photo in lieu of a good measure, and a photo of the graffitied initials for possible provenance. 

He hopped down, and snapped.

“Shall we look at the back patio?” she asked.

Outside again, through the little room for muddy boots and raincoats and out the kitchen door. And there were the roses. Past their annual best but with the odd bush still game for glory. Reds and pinks and buttery-peachy yellows, brown about the edges and limp, but a stern word would fix that. Crowley ignored the blathering estate agent and moved towards a trimmed-back bush, planted proudly atop a mock-Roman amphora.

“Well, well, well,” he murmured. “What have we here?” He ran a thumb across one of the bare branches. It shivered. “Is that the best you can do for me?” A bud formed under his touch. Another stroke and the flower unfurled: white and carnelian streaked. 

“Look at you. I’ve seen one like you before.” Damask scent at her breast, petals in an angel’s hand. He pulled his secateurs out of the air—least he’d remembered those—and found a likely scion for a graft. A carefully snip of stem and bloom, an upward twist of his fingers, and it all got safely tucked away.

“You like roses?” She came up behind him. “You'll _love_ this place in July. Have I mentioned there’s no onward chain?”

“Ramblers,” Crowley said. “Could have them form an arch, here. Over a bench, maybe, for reading.” He could picture it: the ostentatiousness of the scent, the hum of the bees, sun in Aziraphale’s hair, paging through a book in the good summer air. His gaze roamed farther, past the patio plantings and rose beds to where more lawn stretched untouched as a blank canvas. A place past the bower for a paradise garden, with the sound of water and jewel-like, precision planting.

She checked her watch, not subtly. Clearly at the end of her script for dealing with the gruff and eccentric, she asked, “So was it the garden that drew you to the property?”

“The garden looked interesting. But it was the beams inside, really.”

“Yes, they’re fabulous. This place is full of character.”

“Enh.”

Her professional smile sharpened. “If this doesn’t suit, I do have other properties with period features that I’d be happy to—”

“No, it suits. How much?” 

“Oh? Wonderful! The cottage is on the market for—”

“Not the cottage. The beams. Or just the one, at a pinch.”

“The...beams. The ones that...are holding up the ceiling?”

“Yep. How much for the beams?”

“Mr Crowley, you can’t take the beams out of the cottage!”

“Oh, I think you’d find that I _could_. Lucky for you the angel would want me to do things by the books.”

“But, don’t you want to live here?”

“Here? In a bloody _character_ cottage? Nah. Did this vibe the first time round. Blessed be the virtues of triple-glazing and underfloor heating.” He flicked fingers and produced a card. “Give me a call if the sellers want their asking price.”

She slowly reached out to take it, looking dazed.

“Trust me, you’ll call.” Crowley gave her a serious stare from behind his glasses. “Do you even _know_ what lives in _thatch_?”

* * *

From a branch, a pair of magpies chittered sullenly down at him as he swung the bike up over the stile to clamber over. 

“Shush it,” he called back, pushing his glasses up on his head and giving the nearest one a good long stare. It startled and hopped nearer its mate, presumably living up to its clever reputation and reading the runes on what a snake would do to their eggs in the spring if they didn’t behave.

There was no point riding the last part of the ridge. The chalk was rocky and although his tyres wouldn’t dare pop a puncture, it was good to feel the ground as the soil turned familiar. _His_ ground. 

Up here, before the ridge dropped away in the first of two undulations, a scatter of beeches marked the boundary edges. The biggest stood at the corner, the geography of the rest determined by a handful of seeds thrown across the ground sometime in the early 1800s. He leaned the bike against the trunk and walked down the hill, tilting back and turning round so he could get a good look at the guardian _Fagus sylvatica_ in the corner, its big leaves turned copper with the recent string of cold nights. Here in the open, it was spreading wider, rather than tall. No need when there was only the sky to block its way and it could indulge its greediness for the sun as much as it pleased.

That sun was dropping down to the west of the estuary, shining-then-not on the black clouds hanging over the hills; one minute a gold haze suffusing the valley, the next a steely gloom. What had that estate agent said? Changeable days were the best for viewing property? 

“Four seasons here,” Crowley said, crouching down to turn over a clod of earth, crumbling it between his fingers. The soil was richer on the plateau, centuries of vegetation rotted into the chalk for a lush topsoil. Nearby, there was a barrow, undocumented by any archaeological survey. He swept his gaze around to the east, where other ancient earthworks lined the edge of the field. The low stone boundary recalled a picture the angel had sent last week, a misty slog up some hill fort on the edge of Scotland—oh. Aziraphale’s letter was in his pocket, snatched from the postie’s bag as he’d clipped into the bike that morning. He’d read the first paragraph before he’d left, just to gauge matters. It’d been neutral enough that he’d shoved it back into the envelope for later and headed off. (If it had been bad, he probably would have lost his nerve for the trip, and gone back inside to bully an epiphyllum until he felt better.)

He sat, and started the letter again.

> My dear,
> 
> I know you like to tease me when I search for a meaning behind a painting, but as I’ve been walking today, and thinking on matters, it occurs that even I may have outdone myself in that respect. So bear with me. I’ve sent you some photographs; let me provide their exhibition notes. They’ll be as much for myself as for you. While the trail from Lindisfarne has been relatively quiet and I can talk to myself while I cross a field or two, the narrative becomes serpentine and I do lose the thread. I’m sure that will amuse you. And, you were very considerate when I told you about the memory from Glydebourne, but perhaps you might not wish to hear about everything at once.

Yes, neutral. Though he couldn’t help himself feeling uncertain and wary about what might follow. He’d never been able to parse Aziraphale’s choices. They’d each lived at least a hundred human lifetimes. Which memories had Aziraphale felt unable to carry forward? Why had he chosen to cleave from himself some aspects, and not others?

Back in the day the angel had smote the Assyrian army so brutally, the stench of blood and bodies in holy flames so strong, it had confounded Crowley into his serpent form for a week, and yet: Aziraphale still remembered it, spoke about it as divine duty.

Instead, he’d foregone other memories. _Why those?_

Crowley gazed up at the tree-line until he wanted to read on.

> This morning I set off from a little village on the edge of the Cheviot Hills and, do you know, I don’t think I am very far at all from the site of our fateful rabbit barbeque! I will make a detour. 

That at least made sense of at least one of the angel’s photos. A flurry of landscapes sent a week ago, then nothing until this letter.

> The gorse on the hills has stopped flowering (which reminds me, the seed packet is mostly dahlias, and I had to be a tad clandestine in their gathering, so no, they are not carefully labelled), but the purple heather is out on Yeavering. I’m on that magnificent summit now, if that is a desired detail—I am out of practice with letters and certainly unaccustomed to the freedom to recount trivial details this way to you, of all beings! Surely the best epistolary gives some account of landscape?
> 
> Lost my train of thought. Ah yes, the mist on the heather. That’s one of the pictures at this exhibition, and the notes should read: 
> 
> “Eastern view from peak, late October.” _The photographer, having recently remembered a disconcerting episode from their past, walked 22 miles from the location to get a little perspective. The ruined priory of the Holy Island is in the very far distance._

Crowley folded the letter again, the creeping dread of earlier allayed by Aziraphale’s meandering account. The angel was brief and forthright when he was angry, and there were three pages left. Plus an envelope of seeds. He tapped open the packet into his hand, curling his palm around the little ovals that dropped out. Whatever demons the angel had confronted up north, they weren’t Crowley, and it was generous of Aziraphale to let him know. 

“Nice work, angel.” He blew the seeds off his hand, daring them to find a welcoming spot in the mud.

There was a farmhouse there once, south-facing and snugged against the ridge that rose to the north. Crowley found it as the Romans flocked in, grateful for a quiet valley after ditching a legion along the south coast. (No need for demonic input: the humans had their colonising well-organised already.) A woman lived there, her husband recently passed and her sons not yet tall enough to lift the plow. 

She was kind to him when he allowed her to find him there, looking beyond human gaze to the faraway sea. She brought him to her home, offering him a heel of bread with a soft sheep’s cheese that reminded him of pleasant meals shared with the angel in Napoli and Capri. He was suddenly tired of solitude. He exchanged his labour for her kindness, toiling in the fields under the watchful dark eyes of the skylarks and the widow. Good exercise, clean air.

He took in a deep breath now. His muscles ached with pleasant heat from the hours of cycling; the air was still clean, but two thousand years of a widening estuary made for a bouquet of peat and sea fennel. The angel would probably love it if it were bottled and labelled _Grey Mists for Tall Ships_ or something equally daft.

He walked on, following the low perimeter stones, and came to a cairn at the western edge where the ridge dropped away again. He remembered how he’d paused there at the planting, looking out over the yew thicket, down to the river. 

The widow had come to him with a pitcher of cool water, touch-starved. When her hands lingered on his sweat-slick arm he’d let her fingers trail there. The promise of the moment had taken hold in her heart, wistfulness igniting to lust. He’d gently disengaged, but her disappointment didn’t bank the embers she’d reawakened within herself. Within the year she would find a man, and set aside her vaguely pious thoughts of a religious life once her sons were grown. A human life turned from salvation in servitude to be lived of its own free will. A detente then, with Heaven, at no cost to either. 

In his satisfaction, Crowley had stayed for a time; through the waxing and waning of the fields, until the skylarks searched among the stubble of the cut oats. His presence had freed the widow to go to the town, to the fair there. He’d watched the land and the boys, and where he’d walked he placed piles of rocks in corners, lining up the boundaries that felt right. Here will be my trees, he had thought; here the soil is rich and the bedrock is strong; here I remember a warm snooze in that barrow and a good belly-laugh watching the boys wrestle a kite up in the air. A view to the water and a hill at his back.

He’d dug a pit. Built up a fire to burn through the night and watched the stars resentfully, and thought, _mine_. 

The widow had returned one day nurturing the secret of a wonderful wool merchant with no wife or children of his own. Time swept them all off together, with barely a glance back. Hazy, happy memories of childhood and previous marriage had no setting but within their hearts. No one took the land from Crowley once they were gone. The skylarks had the field, the magpies the trees; they were all he allowed.

She’d come here once when Warlock was five, leaving the child asleep in the car after a day of mixed success at a theme park, where no adventure rides failed under the Antichrist’s influence but the child did have a meltdown when Nanny refused another helping of candy floss. She’d parked off the road to the south, trekked the holloway through the yews to the escarpment along the southern boundary. She didn’t dare to step onto the land when the child was near but, oh, she wanted the certainty of it. The piece of earth that was her own, uncovered when the ice retreated, quietly fermenting with life all this while. Minding its own business, like she wished she could. She stood on the perimeter, shaking with fury at Hell and Heaven, at Her intolerable absurdity. Wondering if she ought to drive the child out to Beachy Head and over the cliff.

“Well, I’m pleased that you thought better of it,” the angel had said eventually, after a long hard stare that made Crowley think hysterically of Paddington Bear. “It’s so lovely in that part of the world but whatever had you so melancholy that you went all the way out there?”

“Eh, pass me the gin.” She wasn’t going to give Aziraphale the details. The land had stood secret, her own for this long, and just because they were godparenting it didn’t mean she was going to—well. But some compulsion had her at the district council the next week with a dog-eared title document, completely baffling the poor registrar who couldn’t reconcile the ink-on-linen map with the account on his screen.

“This is a site of special scientific interest. Conservation area. I don’t know how your property got overlooked, Mrs Crowley.”

“It’s very strange,” she said. “But it’s been Crowley land since before Domesday, I believe.”

Planning permission, the agent had said. He should have remembered; he was very fond of twentieth-century district council bureaucracy. 

Standing above the tangle of yew and oak, he dug a heel into the dirt at the edge of the small ridge. In the fading light, the white seam of chalk that ran under the topsoil gleamed bright, and for a moment, the landscape shifted to graphic simplicity, green and white and grey and gold. 

He thought about the little picture he’d bought from a local navy artist, some time after he’d found Aziraphale out at Glyndebourne. Crowley—at once grateful and shaken by his encounter with the angel—had worked through his confusion with a month of painting lessons, wheedled from the artist who was home from the Portsmouth docks and anxiously awaiting baby number three. The painter had a gift for the greens of the Downs, his watercolours richer than they had any right to be, and Crowley found himself impatient to hang the piece here, where it belonged.

But he was nothing if not patient. Thousands of years with a dithering angel saw to that. Winter was approaching. No chance of heavy earthworks, no matter how much he wanted to burrow into the soil right now, stake his claim down to the bedrock. And the thing needed doing properly, no corners cut, all formalities observed. He paced an outline, marked corners with rocks, and made his way up the slope to the centre. It would be spring before any major work could happen, and now he’d found the right beams he had to rethink the top floor.

He laughed in sudden understanding of Aziraphale’s ridiculous obsession with those bookshelves:

“Own it,” she’d urged delightedly, tussling with the angel over possessions and knowledge in that Clapham house a few centuries ago.

Wise counsel, that was. 

From his jacket pocket, where a lesser being would stow a protein bar, Crowley extracted a small, carefully wrapped package. He dug three holes across the site and suggested firmly to the local fungi that if they liked tree roots, it was their lucky day. One by one, he held a clod of soil around each seed, and spoke to it of time passing, the rise and fall of the sun, the imperative to reach up through the dirt. One by one, green shoots poked through his handful of dirt, stretching themselves upwards and outwards, roots twining and seeking around his fingers. Small as they were, by the time the third was sapling-sized, Crowley felt the exertion drain something essential from him, and he sat down heavily next to the young tree.

“Now lisssten to me,” he said, twisting around to address the oak and maple behind him, “I know you’ve waited a very long time—you especially.” He patted the sod around the cedar at his side, whose parent tree had last dropped a seed cone in Lebanon, outside the house of a merchant whose honey cakes (Aziraphale) and wine (Crowley) still put on their top ten, three thousand years later. 

“You’ve all got to put on your very bessst show,” he said, describing the optimum soil pH conditions and the majestic south-facing aspect they had. “It’s not just me you need to impresss.”

He yawned, exhausted, and with the dregs of his power, snapped up a fire into existence in a clear space. He rolled his shoulders and let the change overtake him, a slow undulation across the grass to the edge of the fire. Up in the trees the magpie gave a grumpy croak, and Crowley reared up, to keep it on its guard. 

When he woke it was early morning, the fire a dull pile of embers. He twisted, over and over, the scratch of the rough-dried mud chafing pleasantly deep under his scales. Tasted the air. A careless rabbit grazing across the slope caught his attention, but a single night in this form wasn’t enough to provoke real hunger or even stir him for a chase. Domesticated, indeed. He stood and stretched, surveying the mist that wreathed the yews at the bottom of the slope, and reached for Aziraphale’s letter.

> Crowley, there is a wild goat lurking about a rock cairn. Really. It’s a little like that Hunt fellow’s painting with the red cloth around its horns.

Come on angel, he thought, get to the point. 

> The memory. It was the Danes. You know they sacked the priory out of nowhere—well, out of the North Sea I suppose—and kept on at it for most of a century, but this memory spoke of the first time it happened. The monastery was abundant, a northern beacon: books and treasures. Such good people, too, some of them so brilliant and inspired. Devotion from their own hearts, not some bureaucratic sense of duty but simple love to share. And all thrown onto the rocks and broken to pieces in the sea, or stolen away. Don’t mistake me here. We’ve seen worse in the name of Heaven and Hell and the things that went on in the name of Valhalla weren’t any more or less cruel than humanity always, always is but I—

Crowley’s bike was propped against a low boulder. He did a manual check, gave the morning dew glistening along the chain a telling off, and went over his route. Some country lanes to wind through, but catch a few decent lorry slipstreams and he’d be in Brighton in no time.

The urge to stay, though. Reading Aziraphale’s fragile words made him conscious of his own fault-lines. How many times across the centuries had he come close to these borders but never too close, not wanting to attract the attention of infernal observers? The irony had struck him before; he had been circumspect with this land in a way he could never have borne to be with the angel. But now, he _could_ stay.

He could _keep_.

He might be able to _have_. Both.

Yet Crowley was, almost before anything else, a snake. There was risk to putting all your eggs in one nest if you meant to save at least one. 

He clipped in.

> (This scapegoat is back again. That mark across the paper is where she headbutted me. A new picture for you, here the notes read: 
> 
> “Self-portrait with Capra aegagrus.” _Angel and goat are captured in a moment of contemplative realisation: one of grave responsibility for events in 793, the other regarding the discovery of a chocolate flapjack._ )

* * *

Brighton was busy and interesting, and full of its own dramas, which was exactly what Crowley liked about it. He settled the bike in at some fancy new racks then dialled. 

“Studio Beckwell.”

“Yeah, tell Nav that Crowley’s here.”

A pause; muffled music played.

Nav came on the line. “I thought we had an agreement that you would make appointments.”

“Oh, we’ve all manner of agreements between us, that’s the least of them.”

“Give me an hour.”

“Fine. I’ll want your sister too.”

“She likes appointments even more than I do.” The sound of background conversation, then Nav again. “So, are we doing maintenance, or—?”

Crowley’s grin stretched. “See you soon.”

He strolled down to the seafront, buying a cone of chips to torment the gulls and some Rock to tempt the angel, thinking on the northerly coastlines of the letter.

> So, here it is, then. Some years before, the Bishop felt inclined to gather the riches of the region on the island. Safekeeping. My suggestion. Each talented brother, scribe or healer or artist, felt some grace in Lindisfarne (mine, yes) that induced them to stay. Holy island, the holiest. A place with such a strong guardian presence (there is no way to convey self-deprecation in text, is there?) that no-one ever thought twice about the wisdom of carting trunks of treasure across the causeway for all the northern fisherfolk to wonder at. 
> 
> I wasn’t there that June. They thought themselves safe, but their guardian was gone. Yet that wasn’t the carbuncle of the memory. It was my Hubris that made me hide it away.
> 
> I wanted all these wonderful things and good people to be protected, but it was I who made them a target.

The angel had never quite understood free will in the visceral way that Crowley did. Yes, Aziraphale was aware—always too aware—of _consequences_ , but had never grasped that _effect_ could be well worth the discomfort when the _cause_ made it so.

Crowley had long (privately, and affectionately) been of the opinion that much of Aziraphale’s philosophy was self-directed sophistry rather than honest insight. Yet, as he stood at the edge of the Principality’s island, the breaking of the waves had him wondering how much longer that might be true. 

As he later strolled towards the shop, he found himself still thinking of Aziraphale. That division of attention was soon enough banished as he encouraged some of the background chaos of The Lanes to replenish that which he’d spent in the land. 

There was a particular flavour to it, one well worth savouring. Even back when Brighton had been fishy little Brighthelmstone, he’d liked to come here. The sunny and convenient aspect of the place had always drawn the more fascinating fringes from London. Crowley could remember some truly excellent parties both at Stanmer House and at less salubrious locales before the ridiculous Prince Regent had spoiled everything by making it _trendy_. (Prinny had improved the theatre, though, he’d give him that.)

It was midday and the narrow streets teemed with shoppers and late season tourists, most of them nosing their ways into restaurants and cafes. Bunting fluttered overhead. Crowley whistled, and the birds idling on the pavement took off in a jumbled flutter of wings to land as one along a long line of the stuff. The flimsy wire fell, unable to withstand the sudden weight, tangling people, pennants, and pigeons.

He shouldered his way past, nicely focused now. 

Studio Beckwell was a bottle-green and gold frontage at a fashionably central address; might as well pay the exorbitant business rates, as business was unlikely to ever be an issue. Crowley stepped back to let a well-heeled woman leave the shop, hairspray floating around her like a protection charm. He cast a glance downward, lips curling with amusement when he caught sight of the mud splashes on knees bared by his cycle shorts, then stepped across the threshold in more suitable attire. 

His thumb hooked in the red-stitched belt loop of his charcoal wool trousers; with the other hand he tucked his glasses away. No one would remark on his eyes in this welcoming town of gays, goths, and Greens. More to the point, the Beckwells of any generation could do with a reminder that they should watch their steps.

“Hey, Naveen,” he drawled to the man waiting beside the counter. “How’s tricks?”

There was a private styling room up the black lacquer staircase, but Nav steered him instead to a chair on the main floor. 

“You walk in, you get treated like a walk-in.”

“Fair.” And no hardship. The place was large and welcoming, decked out as if industrial chic had picked up black-flocked Victorian in a bar and got on quite nicely. It buzzed, and Crowley always enjoyed a good buzz.

He studied Nav as the man prepped his station. It hadn’t been too long since he’d seen him last—the end-of-the-world crop—but long enough that there were a few extra laugh lines around his eyes. The subtle thickening around his waist was another sign that time had passed and free moments to exercise were scarce.

“Another sprog, then?” he asked, casual.

Nav’s efficient motions stuttered, then sped again as he covered the reaction.

“Came in spring. She’s great.” Enthusiasm overtook apprehension, then a short laugh. “But a second one isn’t any easier, no matter what they say.”

“Hmm. Name?”

Nav set his scissors down on the counter, and settled onto a stool. Wary eyes met his expectant stare in the mirror.

“Sara.”

“And will your Sara be part of the familial compact like our Jay?”

Silence.

“No hurry.” Crowley tilted his head back, nudging, until Nav’s assessing fingers snagged out the tie and carded through his now-loose hair. He let his eyes drift closed at the familiar touch. Great things or mediocrity for the child; long life or short. Human concerns, and of middling interest to him. Though he did enjoy watching the Beckwell talents flourish under his patronage. 

“Usual terms. I’ll give you her first year to decide.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“See that you do.”

Nav Beckwell first touched the demon Crowley in the summer of 1978. The boy had been fascinated by his hair—the colour, the length, the texture—and had remained so since. In fact, to Crowley’s pride and chagrin, he’d grown up to have _opinions_.

Nav sifted through the layers, lifting the longest strands and comparing their tips with an expert eye and a disapproving mutter. 

“What exactly were you going for here? You’ve let the cut grow out, and if you’re going for hipster dad far be it from me to judge, but I think we both know we can do better.”

He submitted to the commentary, because, well, it wasn’t _wrong_ and it would be to Crowley’s own benefit if his stylist relaxed enough to let his skills shine.

So he shrugged and tried not to feel too much like one of his own plants. “It’s been an interstitial period.”

“Boom times for split ends, those interstitial periods.” He took up a section of hair and pulled without warning. 

He hissed lightly in surprise, but obliged and let it lengthen.

“We’re either growing it out properly and giving it a bit of shape, or it’s all coming off.” Nav dropped his hands, gestured invitingly. “What are you in the mood for?”

“New.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” 

Once he’d been washed and settled back into the chair, Crowley cocked his head in the direction of the bustling bank of activity under the foils. He’d seen that the usual autumnal copper and ash tones were abandoned today in favour of lurid purples and vivid blues. “Extreme, even for these parts.”

“Ah, yeah, it’s Hallowe’en tomorrow.”

He smirked. “Apt then you’ve had a visit from a demon.”

“That’s what Shami said when I rang. She’s worried you want something big and dramatic.”

“Clever Shami.”

A decisive snip. Crowley felt the pull-release of the scissors and the slide of hair down his neck and onto the floor. Locks that hit the tiles found they were surprisingly incinerated. Better safe than sorry.

“Not so big,” he relented. Crowley had always enjoyed mixing teasing with blades, but never when style was on the line.

“Why do I feel like dramatic would be worse?”

He chuckled. “More like, important.”

“Hmm.” Nav’s thumbs smoothed hair back across Crowley’s temples, then he turned away to select a different pair of scissors.

“Important to me,” Crowley added, to his back. “It’s not dangerous or anything.”

He hadn’t meant to say that. Bloody family. The first Beckwells had bargained their service to him nearly two hundred years before, and they’d become more and more precocious by the generation.

“Hullo, wombat,” Shami said with a light touch on her brother’s shoulder, all easy as if Crowley hadn’t seen her triangulating them in the salon mirrors as she hung up her coat.

“Alright, trouble,” she directed at Crowley, “what’s going on?”

She dropped down into the chair next to them, angling to complete a trio in the mirror’s gilt frame. She was dressed lawyer-casual, a sharp black blazer and chunky necklace set off by a flattering dark crop. The siblings met a glance in the mirror: her eyebrows raised, Nav shrugged.

Satisfied with whatever lack of real concern she saw, Shami twirled the chair to square her knees with Crowley, leaned back, crossed her arms. 

Nav, for all his apparent nonchalance, moved too, keeping Crowley pointedly between them both. They’d always been a team, these two.

He picked up a lock of hair that had fallen into the cutting cape across his lap and examined it. A good handspan in length.

“I need a favour,” he told her.

He twisted the lock into a knot and set it down, shiny auburn against the black cloth. A little bit of theatre for the crowd. Teenage Shami had a proper dabble in the dark arts and all the well-cut cashmere and law degrees in the world couldn’t stop her gaze darting suspiciously to the figure-eight on his knee. 

At the snicketing sound of Nav clipping a guard onto the razor she looked up. In the mirror, Crowley watched her glance at her brother, then over at the outsize clock on the wall. All focus, even if she couldn’t stop one foot from tapping nervously in her nice heels.

“I hope that’s not a capital-F favour,” Shami leaned forward, “I’ve got twenty-seven minutes before a new client—”

“I’ll be your new client.”

She raised her eyebrows. “ _You_ need a property lawyer?”

“Someone once told me it was never a good idea to do your own legal representation. I hear planning’s a real bitch these days.”

The narrowing of her eyes and shake of her head communicated volumes. “How very handy for you to have an expert to call on.” 

Snark uncalled for, surely. He’d only suggested land law to her at an impressionable age, not frog-marched her to the bar. 

A buzz, as Nav switched on the clippers and set to shaping a tight flex up the curve of his nape. The sensation felt good, vibrating at the base of his skull, and he tipped his head as Nav made his way around. This had been the right thing to do, down to basics.

“Cancel your meeting,” Crowley said.

He hadn’t quite put enough oomph into it, because she pulled out her phone, held up a hand, and tapped away for a second.

“Better yet,” she slipped the phone back in her blazer, “I’ll postpone them half an hour _and_ you can be my new client.”

Behind him, Nav ducked his head with a quirk of his lips.

The junior came over with coffee; Shami slugged back a gulp and winced, reaching for the sugar. She tapped three little packets into the black murk. “So, is this about Mayfair?” There was a predatory gleam behind her expensive spectacles. “Trying to dig out a basement like all the oligarchs?”

“Nope,” he said, running a hand over the delightful freshly-shaved fuzz before Nav could swat him away to cut the top. “Local.”

“What, that plot over near the estuary?”

“I want you to sort the permissions for a new build.”

She laughed. “Well, it’s a good thing you’re a bit longer-lived than most. It got turned into a national park since you registered it. That’ll take years.”

How long had Aziraphale said he’d be away? Some months? 

“I need it by spring.”

Another laugh. “Maybe if you’re running a campsite and only want to chuck up a few yurts, sure.”

Nav leaned down. “Too late, should’ve kept the length if you wanted to get into the glamping business.”

Crowley drummed his fingers on the leather of the chair arm. They fell silent, and he picked up the lock of hair again, holding it at enough distance to entice Shami to think it could be taken.

She let out a huff. “Why can’t you, you know.” She snapped her fingers.

“Ugh,” he said. “I don’t want to exert my will over tedious paperwork at Eastbourne Council for months on end, and the thing has to be done properly.”

Nav paused in his cutting, and Shami set her cup down on the counter. Bless it, the two of them were annoying. Some of the best of their line, he reckoned.

“ _Properly_.” From Nav, who listened and let his sister do the preliminaries. “So that’s what’s important.”

Indeed. He’d been turning those words over since the estate agent mentioned it, gave a name to what he’d been doing these past weeks without really looking it in the eye himself. Planning, permission. Permission to plan, rather than just _react_ to each Hellish demand and Heavenly order that got thrown at them. Permission to himself to end that thought with _them_.

“Second home,” Shami laid it down for correction. “Can’t see you keeping bees and roses full-time.”

Crowley didn’t bother setting her right. Nav was halfway there, his fingernails a slow drift on his scalp, shaking his head imperceptibly. New dad, sniffing out sentiment. The Beckwells knew about the angel in the abstract, of course. You didn’t cultivate a compact with a family of persuasive individuals for centuries and not leak out a few personal details.

“The bees’ll sort themselves if they know what’s good for them. Which reminds me,” he twisted in the chair, dislodging the contact before Nav got too close to the bone, “those zamioculcas in the corner there are a disgrace, which is a disgrace in itself because they’re basically indestructible.”

Nav turned the hairdryer—the latest in futuristic design—on Crowley’s horticultural advice as well as his hair. When he was done, Shami had a tablet on her knee and was looking critically at a satellite map.

“What do you want on it?”

Well. That was the real big ask, wasn’t it? Certainly not any human’s hand-me-down character cottage. A new space with a place for everything that was old. Light pouring from the sky and the lush comfort of the earth. Something unprecedented. 

She had a form open now. “Commercial or residential?”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Residential.”

“Shame,” said Nav. “I was really hoping for the glamping.”

“New build...” Shami clicked through to a new page. “Please tell me there are some outbuildings we can blag as disused.”

“There’s definitely foundations on the property.”

She looked back at the satellite map, frowning.

“Under the topsoil.”

Looking up, she transferred her frown to him. “How.” A sigh. “How far under?”

“Atta girl,” he said, “Dunno. Couple of millennia?”

“If we’re working on this project I need you to think in millimetres, not millennia.”

A series of increasingly silly questions confirmed his decision to outsource this nonsense to better-equipped humans. 

  * Protected views? (Yes. (Low-lying profile, then.)) 
  * Materials? (Why? (Sympathy with the local environment. (Fine.)))
  * Bats? (Yes please! (No, don’t. Trust me.)) 
  * Trees? (Oooh, where shall I start? ( No, don’t!))



“Spring,” she repeated, sliding the tablet back into her bag and holding out her hand for the lock of hair. 

He held it up out of reach, then placed it in her palm. “I want you to mind how you go with this, Shami. You won’t need to worry if you’re careful, but there’s likely others like me about at the moment.”

“Maybe I’m in the market for another new client,” she replied sweetly.

“I’d suggest not.”

Some seriousness of his tone must have convinced her, because she dropped her smirk and nodded. 

Nav cleared his throat and held up a hand mirror. “Finished. How’s this feel?”

The weightlessness of it was a revelation. He smiled at them both. “Like Spring.”

A rest break at the Gardeners Arms, off Haywards Heath, _en route_ to London. 

> Final picture in the exhibition: 
> 
> “Mortification.” _A close-up on a heel blister. The photographer had a pebble in his boot for a day’s walk along St Cuthbert’s Way. The blister cracked, and the skin healed with a faint mark._
> 
> I will walk for a while longer this week, I think. Your lovely Bentley seems to have a sense of where to meet me.
> 
> PS You’ll see by the postmark that I waited to mail this from Port Sunlight. That goat painting stuck in my head and I thought we ought to have a reckoning at the gallery.
> 
> I do believe we’re good now, the Scapegoat and I.

  
  


### Authors' notes

 **Aga  
** There’s the Church of England, and there are [Aga](http://www.agaliving.com/) cookers.

 **Bats  
** Bat [conservation and property development](https://www.bats.org.uk/our-work/buildings-planning-and-development/building-or-development-works/planning-and-the-law) is a fraught and intricate topic.

 **Beckwells  
**Shami and Nav are the latest scions of the Beckwell family, with whom Crowley has had a demonic compact since the 1830s.

 **Character cottage on the South Downs  
** [Nope](https://assets.savills.com/properties/GBPWRSPSG160020/PSG160020_PSG18001594.PDF).

 **Crawley Beauty  
**A cooking variety of apple [local](https://sussexappletrees.co.uk/projects/crawley-beauty/) to the area.

 **Crowley’s cycling outfit  
**Circe is all-in for David-Tennant-as-Crowley wearing expensive cycling gear. He’s wearing 2019 [Oakleys](https://www.cyclingweekly.com/reviews/glasses-goggles/oakley-flight-jacket) and this [Rapha winter jersey](https://www.rapha.cc/gb/en/shop/winter-jersey/product/WJY09XXBLU), but in black with a red armband. For those wondering, he does wear a [helmet](https://www.giro.com/p/syntax-mips-road-bike-helmet/100000000300000101.html#pid=7099648), partly because nobody likes a brain injury but mostly to mess with Aziraphale who can’t actually believe the (speed) demon would wear one. And if you’ve got any doubts that Crowley would present as a road cyclist, clearly you don’t know enough fifty-year-old men with too much disposable income.

 **Glamping  
**Yurts, shepherd’s huts, treehouses—the South Downs is lousy with them. 

**Goat painting by that Hunt fellow**  
[The Scapegoat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scapegoat_\(painting\)), by William Holman Hunt. Blythely is a lifelong Pre-Raphaelite fangirl.

 **Local navy artist  
**Crowley bought [_Chalk Paths_](https://www.wikiart.org/en/eric-ravilious/chalk-paths), 1935, from the artist Eric [Ravilious](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Ravilious)—it’s one of the treasures that he secrets in Aziraphale’s vaults rather than in a gallery. [_Cuckmere Haven_](http://learning.southdowns.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/08/Eric-Ravilious-Teachers-Notes.pdf), 1939, his second Ravilious acquisition, he keeps in the Towner Art Gallery at Eastbourne. 

**Oligarchs’ basements in Mayfair  
**Terribly serious concerns from local residents’ associations; Crowley remains [endlessly amused](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/nov/09/billionaires-basements-london-houses-architecture) and very much enjoys making provocative comments on the Westminster City Council planning portal.

 **Yeavering Bell in the Cheviot Hills  
**Part of [Northumberland National Park](https://www.northumberlandnationalpark.org.uk/places-to-visit/the-cheviots/yeavering-bell/). St Cuthbert’s Way passes through the uplands, moors, hills, and forests. If you were paying attention in chapter 2 you learned that this region is where Aziraphale and Crowley cemented their arrangement in 1020. 

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 9

[I Am Here](https://open.spotify.com/track/32j279x3imcBWBu9OaHX2n?si=JXx0mjJoRemVQZJEBX2QgQ)  
Pink

[An Acre of Land](https://open.spotify.com/track/2PddvKS4tezbBwdhNMkc2G?si=Bm9NonRNTlG5WUxISTTTzQ)  
PJ Harvey & Harry Escott

#### Perfume

[Oasis Verte](https://www.rituals.com/en-gb/oasis-verte-1105098.html), by Rituals  
Yews in morning mist by the estuary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/618670290189402112/planning-permission). In which, we talk about our writerly and opinionated joy in upending expectations of the "South Downs cottage".


	10. Through the Midlands, November

November, and an angel made from knives.

Aziraphale craned his neck up to the west front of Chester Cathedral. Looming thirty feet, the angel above held hands outstretched with a beseeching expression of sorrow. Wings formed entirely from an amnesty on illicit blades, some engraved with messages of grief, some with remorse. He’d walked a hairpin loop from the meadows to the centre of Chester to get there, treading a quiet path along the River Dee with a family who’d lost their boy. 

“Fourteen,” the mother kept saying, while the father’s voice cracked when he called for their other boy, running ahead on the path.

Easy enough to bless one broken little family, but there were a hundred thousand knives in the mournful angel, and more on the streets.

A happier family in Sheffield, where a café caught his eye and it turned out to be a houseplant shop, celebrating a year of brisk business for a nurse turning a career corner. Kids mixing compost for their mum, rambunctious with their hands full of dirt. An old kitchen table with an ever-brewing teapot and packet of shortbread, an Iranian and Pakistani matron sat together with the retired bricklayer from Doncaster, swapping names for spider plants. 

Community again with bell-ringers at Coventry, who welcomed him up the old tower to watch their peal. He stood in the new cathedral on an unusually bright morning, turning this way and that in the glow of the baptistry window, trying to capture the bright gold circle in a photograph. The spare expanse of the space let him take a deep breath.

He’d known that some of the hidden memories would be awful. Sure enough, he found awful at the River Trent:

A drippy squelch through mud to the underside of the medieval bridge. The leather of his new gloves scraped when he prised out the old block of sandstone. In the distance Jacobite rebels approached, but they were only re-enactors out for their yearly tromp, and he hadn’t had much time for the Bonnie Prince the first time around. The sounds were out of step with both Aziraphale’s past and his present, where a shivery, sick memory wreathed up his nostrils:

The Great Mortality made a pincer movement on the Midlands. Those fleeing London had it rain down from York, straight to their lymphatic systems. Pestilence swaggered about, fires crackled as the bodies piled higher. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale commanded, the stench hanging over the village catching in his throat and pushing the timbre of his voice into an order, “we have an Arrangement.”

There were no other angels, and how else was he to get a demon to do the Almighty’s work? 

He ignored the fact that Crowley was sweating and feverish. He was a pair of hands capable of a blessing, however arid; capable of healing, however depleted; and there were dozens of children orphaned or nearabouts by this infernal, hideous sickness. He thrust a squalling bundle at the demon. 

“Take this bab out of the village.”

Crowley stared at him, shaking his head. “I have never,” he coughed wetly, “in three hundred years, _demanded_ anything from you, and now you’re—”

“Come back for the mother if she makes it to morning.”

“Aziraphale—”

He did not stop to listen.

Neither mother nor child survived the night. Neither did Crowley, his corporation a cold bloody mess with plague, and the ravages of his excessive use of blessings scorching his palms.

It was twenty-seven years before a furious Hell released him back to Earth, and another fifteen before a prickly Crowley agreed to a drink together. Standing under a bridge in the bleak midwinter Aziraphale understood why.

A rush of exhilaration at the Wolverhampton Wanderers home ground. A Friday night fixture under lights and packed to the rafters, but a better kind of unalloyed joy at a girl’s under-12s match the next day. He stood on the sidelines with a big brother who yelled at his sister’s footwork and, memorably, at Aziraphale’s in the half-time family kick-around. Grubby knees and gappy teeth galore, and a resounding 4-1 for the winners didn’t stop both teams whooping with delight for the player of the day.

At a men’s shed in Stafford:

“It’s called social prescription,” Aziraphale was told. “Have a cuppa, have a natter, talk it out, or don’t. But be with people, that’s the important thing.”

“Brilliant,” he said, meaning it. “I’ve always found myself that it helps to move, to do, if I’m working through something. Though, as you say, that can be a bit lonely.”

Derek nodded. “Sounds like you’ve found your way to the right place then. Come on, have a go, there’s a spare bench.”

The orders of the day were decorations, with all manner of candlesticks and ornaments underway. Aziraphale took a fancy to the idea of a wood-slice wreath, and found himself rootling about in the woodpile until he found some lovely birch to section off. He cut, and sanded, glued, and listened. 

The conversation ranged around them, touching on the still-tender bitterness of a region whose industrial influence had long since waned. A simple but pained question—“When was the last time you were in Staffordshire?”—brought that home.

Aziraphale remembered a particularly poor railway journey in the late-nineteenth century before the Grand Junction was properly reliable, and a visit to Josiah Wedgwood’s workshop for a bespoke dinner service. He said, “Not in recent years, I’m afraid. Tell me what I’ve been missing.”

At tea-time, the tabletop hot plate came out. Aziraphale demanded a turn at the frypan, under the tutelage of John, who’d been making oatcakes for four decades having learned from his mum. His efforts were pronounced middling at best, but they disappeared in short order regardless.

John was also a dab hand with the table jigsaw and gave him a finely-cut snowflake ornament, hung from a jute cord. The post-Christmas project would be nest boxes, Derek told him. “London? Plenty of sheds. I’ve got a contact at Camden if you want an intro.”

Later, in another part of the city and at the twilight end of the afternoon, Aziraphale found himself drinking hot mulled wine in an indoor forest.

“Ay up duck,” the woman at the vestibule door had greeted him. “Welcome to St Mary’s.”

The eight-hundred year-old church was home to an annual festival of trees. A high-spirited children’s choir was the soundtrack to his tour through nave and transept. Candlelit burnished wooden pews and glinted off stained glass. He finished his wine by tree thirty-four, where he stopped to read each hopeful message written on the paper doves that flocked the branches. By tree seventy-one he’d fallen in love.

“Found one you like?” A young woman with a lanyard passed him a fresh, steaming cup along with paper and pencil. “Don’t forget to write down your favourite and vote. Winning tree gets bragging rights, and they’ll put it up in City Hall.”

Aziraphale took a fortifying sip, leaned back against the tomb of a long-dead town worthy, and made his choices as the choir launched into a wobbly version of _Adeste_ _Fideles_.

To Crowley he sent pictures of his favourites. No response; he hadn’t had one for several days. In the charitable warmth amongst the Yule trees it was easy to accept that he was being given the gift of space.

He closed his eyes, back to that stretch of time in his map room, the amiable cup of tea that met his resolution to go out and wander. Crowley’s unvexed understanding.

_Brave new world._

_Do your own thing._

Now he _was_ doing his own thing, and he was better for it, out in the world and reclaiming his missing pieces, but in the last few days his thoughts kept turning to what _Crowley_ saw when he looked at that map. A rich tapestry, or something parochial and circumscribed? He remembered a time when Crowley’s bitterness at business travel spilled over, but he also remembered an exhortation in a Bristol tavern.

_Things are really happening out there, you know?_

How funny that he was already thinking about going home for the holiday.

Draining the last from his cup, Aziraphale made a decision of his own and smiled gently at tree seventy-one. “You’ll be perfect to spend Christmas with me in the bookshop.” He touched the blue-green needles. “Another tree, of course, but very much like you. In the bow window, by the histories.”

He made the notation and tucked the slip into a waiting box along with a donation.

The tree would be there with certainty, and for the rest, he’d have to wait and see.

* * *

The Library of Birmingham shone gold and gunmetal against the heavy clouds. Anticipation had him humming as he approached; the building looked like a stack of gifts waiting to be unwrapped. Honestly, there was something _exciting_ about entering a new library for the first time.

He rode the escalator up through the fanciful atrium then up to the transplanted Victorian reading room housed in the rooftop rotunda. This memory—whatever its unknown nature—would be a fortunate one to find, truth be told. He’d remembered that it had been tucked away in a Shakespeare volume in Birmingham, but ah, which one, and had it been lost to the fire that devoured all but a fraction of that grand municipal collection? 

The moment he stepped into the restored jewel of a room in its ultra-modern casing he knew it was still there. Aziraphale urged the room empty, then walked unerringly to a cabinet of early critical works on the far wall. It was a raucous one, that much was certain, and without the melancholic tones that had coloured the other recent acquisitions. He was alight with curiosity.

Aziraphale hurried down to the river. Crawly’s feet sounded behind him, angry shouts not much farther beyond. 

“Are you going to talk about it?”

“No.” 

“So, can I talk about it, then? Because I’ve got to tell you, that was some top-notch smiting you did on that temple.”

“They weren’t using it properly! And no one was hurt,” Aziraphale snapped. Nothing but his pride, and his reputation, and if the locals had their way, his corporation. 

“Wasn’t building that temple your idea in the first place?”

How he was going to explain the destruction of the last five years’ of work to Gabriel he hadn’t the _faintest_.

“Turns out their cultural revolution was doing fine on its own without my guidance,” Aziraphale said, curt.

“Interference,” muttered Crawly, but Aziraphale heard.

“We’re not talking about it.”

“Fine.” Crawly pushed past him, skidding down the muddy bank on sandalled heels.

“And why are _you_ here?”

The shouting sounded nearer. The demon cursed under a panting breath, waved an arm, and a boat slid out from within the reeds. “Get in!”

An inelegant scramble. Crawly took the front; the spot Aziraphale where would have sat was already taken by jars of palm wine.

“Ah, I see now your infernal work. You know that trade without a permit is punishable by—”

“Satan’s sake, angel, get in the fucking boat and _row_.” 

Aziraphale came back to himself, huffing with laughter. The memory was so vivid, Crowley’s—no, _Crawly’s_ —indulgent indignation so typical of how he’d been in their early encounters. And Aziraphale himself, so staid a counterpoint. Seeing them both thus was a little like he imagined it might be to page through a photo album of awkward teenage photographs. 

He couldn’t quite see why he’d put such a memory away. He’d not always been right, of course; or, to look at it as the Aziraphale of that era would have, he’d occasionally been ahead of his time with interventions and they’d not been properly appreciated. He was aware of when and where this must have been; he’d remembered the temple burning, but not the means of his narrow escape. He’d gone on to other projects along the Euphrates with good effect, and Gabriel hadn’t even noticed in the end that this one had gone so awry. The truly interesting aspect was that his removal of this memory was so late: it was stored in a book published in the later years of Queen Victoria. What did a critical monograph on _Antony & Cleopatra _have to do with an angel and a demon in a rowboat?

The mob was a good quarter-hour upriver, but it seemed prudent to put more space between them. Besides, Aziraphale found he had no appetite for humans at that moment, and Crawly appeared content to continue onward. They hadn’t spoken since pushing off. Aziraphale first did his bit at the oar, then did progressively less as the heated drowse of the afternoon settled in. Their pace slowed.

“Gah, it’s a scorcher.” Crawly set down the oar, and yanked his outer tunic over his head. “Is there wine back there? Tell me you didn’t toss it all overboard.”

“Please. I’m not a heathen.” Aziraphale, who had indeed tossed all the wine overboard, performed a hasty minor miracle. 

Crawly twitched in reaction, but didn’t comment, only leaned back to take the jug and drink. As he did, the demon’s long, untethered hair spilled across Aziraphale’s lap.

Compulsively, he reached down to touch. Sun-heated threads tangled across his fingers, brighter than blood and so _soft_. 

Aziraphale jerked his hand back.

Crawly straightened again and set the wine down between his feet. He gathered up that spectacular fall of hair and twisted it up out of the way into a loose knot.

“That’s better,” he pronounced. “Right, where were we?” He took up the oar again. “Oi, angel, if you’re not being useful with those butch forearms, you’re on watch!”

“Um. I’ll keep a look-out, yes.”

And he was. He couldn’t look away from the sweat beading at Crowley’s nape. Aziraphale blinked rapidly. The heat was getting to him.

“And have a think about where you’d like me to drop you off, yeah? You’ll owe me a favour, and I’m flexible.” He canted his head, enough that Aziraphale saw the profile of his grin.

Lord Almighty, thought Aziraphale. Out loud he said, “Pass me that wine, Crawly, there’s a good fellow.”

The sun continued its ascent, and Aziraphale continued his descent. He was lulled by the slow rock of the boat, the lap of the water, the whir of winged insects. And above all, by the play of muscle across Crawly’s working shoulders.

He felt a bit like crying, and a lot like biting. It was a dizzying combination. The humans had only really begun their explorations of anatomy. Aziraphale himself knew the basics, had tested his own field-kit in all regards. He’d never felt so fascinated before. He could practically hear the thrum of blood under tanned skin; he could see the sinew and fibre move in tandem across bone. And he could feel that skin, that muscle, that sinew, that blood in his own chest, his belly, lower, and was this desire—was this—?

He groaned.

“You alright back there?”

“Crawly,” he murmured. His hand hovered a hairsbreadth from those muscles. He’d never touched the demon before today. “Can I?”

“Mmm?” Crawly half-turned. 

The motion brought Aziraphale in contact with sweat-slick skin, right in the place where Crawly’s wings were tucked away. He gasped, static buzzing through his palm and rattling through him. Crawly’s hand lashed out whip-quick and caught Aziraphale’s wrist. The pressure of his fingers was like drowning.

“Oh _my_.”

“Fucking— _Aziraphale_.” Crawly’s lips parted, his eyes hazy and their gold spreading. “What,” he said, and swallowed.

Aziraphale remembered those wings; they were dark and beautiful, and the thought of them here in this plane, on Crawly’s body, made him want to _touch_. He reached out with his free hand, fingers already splayed in eagerness for greater contact.

Crawly dropped his wrist and reeled away. The boat rocked as he stared at Aziraphale in consternation. “What are you _doing_?"

“Is this _temptation_?” Aziraphale asked. “Is this _lust_?”

“I’m not tempting you!”

“But I _feel_ it, Crawly. It’s so _interesting._ ”

The demon turned away, then back, this time with an incredulous look on his face.

“Oh-ho, don’t try the curious immaculate with me, angel. I’ve seen you sashaying out of widow’s houses tucking in your deshdash.”

Aziraphale scoffed. “Please, it’s not like you’re not,” he made a hand motion that covered a multitude of positions, “keeping your oar in too.”

“Yesss. Lust is part of my job.”

Infernal being. “I can’t imagine I have any idea about a _demon’s_ job. My actions are—I’m being helpful. People need love. What I do is nothing like what—”

Crawly turned all the way around, placing the oar handle deliberately and softly across his ruddy knees. “Please, please, _do_ tell me what it is.”

“I’m. Well. Understanding the human condition.”

“But I’m not,” Crawly said, and for a flashing moment his shoulders shifted with an impossible undulation of scales, “human.”

He turned back with a challenging lift to one eyebrow, his shoulders flexing. “Lust all you want back there. Just don’t stare too hard. Puts me off my stroke.” 

Ah. Pleasurable, then. Stumbling out onto the public viewing balcony high overlooking the city, Aziraphale was glad of the wind to cool his cheeks.

* * *

The Bentley was an obliging travel companion, but some experiences required particular company. He made arrangements to meet Anathema in Swindon, off the 06:02 train from Paddington, and the sight of her red overcoat and matching pom-pom hat cheered him when he hadn’t quite realised how badly he needed it.

“Oh my _god_ ,” she said, the American vowels sounding like just another regional variation to his now well-saturated ears. She slid into the passenger seat, and immediately lounged back as far as she could go. “I get to ride in The Car? He _lent_ it to you? AZ, come the fuck _on_.”

“Hello, my dear. How have things been with you?”

“Got my Christmas shopping done, flight’s this evening to see Mom, and I discovered Fortnum & Mason. Other than spending sixty quid on boutique mini mince pies I’d say I’m healthy, happy, and free of demonic influence.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“And how have you been? Been buying up every auction lot in the country, then?”

“My collection’s growing,” he acknowledged with a smile.

Aziraphale hadn’t, of course, described to Anathema exactly why he was travelling and what treasures he’d been seeking. He’d known that given the slightest whiff of the ethereal her curiosity would not have been deterred. But she’d been there at the edge of the world, stood by them and on behalf of her people, and had looked into the abyss as much as her human eyes were able. She deserved a part of what magic could be safely shared in her world.

“So...you’re in his car.” She leaned over. “Tell me everything.”

He swerved that particular line of enquiry with a small smile. “Contrary to expectations she handles quite well around sharp corners.” 

Rebuffed, she sat back with a pout, but her eyes darted around the interior for clues, pausing on a wrapped parcel on the back seat. “Hmmph. You’re both as bad as each other. Hey, can we stop for coffee?”

And on to Avebury, through the early midwinter morning.

They were walking, swapping notes on solstice celebrations in California versus the Early Bronze Age (balmier in both, they decided). Holding onto Aziraphale’s duffeled sleeve, Anathema stumbled a little in the lightening dark, and again, when he asked how her work was going.

She lifted her chin, the skin reddened from the cold but there was no chilling her intent to face down any self-doubt. “I’ve been in every Wednesday and Friday. The walk-in business, no problem, I stocked a bunch of almanacs by a friend of mine as Christmas gifts. Sold one book you’ll probably cringe at. Crowley said we’ll get it back once he’s dead, which, quote, ‘Given the dodgy content, will be long before the angel notices it’s gone’.”

“Oh dear.”

“Cataloguing is OK. But I think I spotted a new section last week that hadn’t been there before. So maybe the shop is trusting me a little more?” 

She’s proud, he thought. “I am absolutely certain that must be the case.”

The sky was beginning to brighten, the uniform gloom leavening to dark banks of cloud. 

“And your own research?” he asked.

Her hand tightened on his arm. Bless her. Had she thought he wouldn’t know she’d been devouring his full prophecies collection every time his back was turned?

“I need to look,” she admitted. “But I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”

He petted her gloved hand with his own. “That’s fine,” he told her. “Few of us are. But we’ll know it when we find it, I think; that’s the promise and reward for faith.”

“And then what?”

He didn’t know the answer to that question, for her or for himself. And until that moment he hadn’t known he had any such thoughts about faith, either. He fixed his eyes on the horizon. Individual figures were coalescing, alone and grouped together. People, too, amidst the standing stones.

“Let’s welcome the light.”

The morning turned eight, and the frost crunched underfoot. Anathema found herself drawn into a group of modern-day druids, laughing aloud with delight as they welcomed her.

He walked out along the ridge of the henge for a while, the chalk path gleaming from last week’s wash of rain. A few meditative souls walked ahead of him, circling the village and the stones in some genuflection to their imagined ancient past. The past broke through here and there as it had done in York—the heave-ho decades of digging and hauling; a butchered elk to fuel the spirits of the builders and their families; a sacred space turned defensive when a runner from the ridgeway warned hoarsely of the invaders from the east. Below, activity bustled at the inner circle, and he could see Anathema’s bright hat amongst white and green robes from across centuries. 

He lifted his gaze from the humans below, the rainbow melange of their beliefs leaving him full to the brim. An island full of mixed-up people, they held their ideas fiercely, even if some of them couldn’t express them and some of them couldn’t shut up. No wonder so many of them were confused.

And fair enough. He was looking up at the sky in search of space and simplicity himself. In the between-space his wings flexed, but this wasn’t a deserted beach on the Northumberland coast, and all he could do was roll his shoulders, and send his gaze out to the horizon. Sunrise still some time away, but the rising halo of light threw faint shadows, spreading like fingers on the rolling plain.

Aziraphale loved the world, and loved it _now_ , especially. Fortnum’s mince pies included. It had been hard to find too much satisfaction in his assignments when the humans had lived hand-to-mouth in animal skins and every second babe didn’t live to see a full year. And before the temples, and the sacraments, and the never-ending, always-changing _rules_ , before then, the nature of the Almighty was so much simpler. 

On the horizon, the Sun lifted its bleary head, stumbling back from a long journey, unconquered, seeing the way home.

Aziraphale made his way to the outer circle, leaned against a sarsen. _Stone circle-y times_ , Crowley had guessed he had first come to this island, but the mesolithic had never felt long enough for him. His sense of this place, his _guardianship_ , felt deeply ingrained; _ineffable_. Aziraphale removed his glove and pressed his palm flat to the stone and opened his Eyes.

To the east, the clouds blushed pink at the steady sun-rise. Shrouding gloom lifted from skeletal trees. 

The mist, the clouds, began their burn away. 

The longest night, ceding to the newest day.

* * *

He dropped Anathema at Heathrow after lunch, and felt rather like his own holidays were beginning. The Bentley picked up on his jolly mood with, of course, her own infernal twist.

 _Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring tingle tingling too_ _  
_ _(ring-a-ling-a ding-dong-ding!)_

They drove on through west London, each mile closer to home stoking his growing anticipation. He caught a glimpse of the Thames and distant trees beyond as they followed the curve of the road near Gunnersbury. Kew Gardens, he recognised, and wondered if they’d strung lights in the trees this year.

Crowley’s text the day before had been of the concert tickets Aziraphale had picked up that October day. Only two months, no time at all in the scheme of things. But to Aziraphale, it felt as though he’d been travelling for an age. _Through_ ages, certainly. Accumulating, accommodating new knowledge. Some of it was heavy, some gossamer, all enlightening. Tiring, though.

The desire to rest for a while, to consolidate and consider, was very strong.

He’d have to see, he thought, how it all came together. For the moment, London closed around him. The city felt good to wear again.

A parking spot was miraculously free in front of the bookshop. He maneuvered in (parallel!), gave the Bentley a grateful pat, and asked his various luggage to make themselves at home inside.

There was a new table at the front of the shop, covered in the almanacs Anathema had described. Picking one up, he leafed through, noting with interest that her author friend clearly had access to some very interesting herbal texts. Something to follow up in the New Year, perhaps. Or perhaps not, he thought, folding his coat over the back of an armchair. He could drop a hint, give that project to her to pursue. Wasn’t that what having a young apprentice was meant to be about?

The shop smelled of pine, with citrus-and-spice notes. He followed the scent around to the histories, and yes, there was the beautiful tree. The blue-green needles were soft under his fingertips. Dried orange slices hung alongside golden musical instruments, and green and gold ribbon threaded through the branches. Atop the tree sat a replica bird, an ornament that Aziraphale most definitely had not put there himself. A magpie, he saw, stretching up on his toes to look; stark black and white feathers looked strange but strangely right amidst the holiday finery. There was a sprig of holly held in its beak, the berries gleaming.

He pulled out of the air the little snowflake John-of-the-Shed had given him, and carefully hung it from one of the upper branches. Between that and the wood-slice wreath he’d hang on the front door his travels would be well-represented in the festivities.

Aziraphale toured the floor, noting Anathema’s changes, resisting the urge to reshelve where he disagreed with her curation. There were signs of Crowley’s habitation too—scribbled sketches on counter tops, the ozonic overlay in his reading nook near Design, the London botanical book propped open in a wooden reading rest. And, treats: underneath the tree, a case of the English wine they’d enjoyed, complete with a floppy red-and-green tartan bow.

He’d seen some beautiful places in the north and beyond, but none so beautiful as the contentment of being in one’s own. 

Restoration of _Nice and Accurate_ was coming along well—nicely and accurately, to be precise—though with plenty of space for him yet to tinker. He found the door to the map room was closed, but it had been opened in his absence. 

Aziraphale felt his pulse thud as he winched down the map.

It came flooding back: the frustration of that afternoon after his Oxford trip, his sturdy resolution to take a sabbatical wobbling immediately at the sight of Crowley’s jacket slung over _his_ chair, at the intimate spread of feathers across _his_ floor. And later, surprising himself by reaching out to hold the demon, stop him astride, but too hesitant to settle him on his lap. Being close to _something_ right when he was about to leave it.

The year was winding down. They’d toasted to a thousand years. Was it right to stop now and stay? 

He stopped winding the map, and felt his way along the paths he’d taken. Trailed down the Mersey and overland to the banks of the Dee, where the new blessing he’d given the grieving family buffed the map like a brass rubbing. He touched other new doings in Bradford, in the Lakes, in Altrincham. Found himself impressed at the steep topography he’d scaled for three days in the Peak District. Stepped back to find some sense in his route around the north and the midlands, some Heavenly sigil of his own, but if he was honest the eastings and southings had been mostly down to the Bentley, and the backtracking his own indecision about a very good menu. 

“And there’s too many Michelin stars in the south west to stop now,” he said aloud, a line rehearsal in anticipation of any lure to stay, to settle. 

Where he’d taken back memories, the map had settled. Most places with no trace; the older ones a little stretched, and a ghostly bump at Lindisfarne that wrinkled the parchment. Pleasingly, though, no hard weight behind it now. 

He could tell that Crowley had been here too, had winched the map around, hooked fingernails into squares and peered back in time. Mostly coastal, miry places, nearby hilltops and trees; eroding cliffs in Suffolk and Cornwall; estuaries in Sussex and up in the Wash. Inland, too, at arty towns and beauty spots: Glasgow, the Brecon Beacons, the Chatsworth estate. Not following him, then. Busy with his own concerns.

There was a great sweep of the country, from Plymouth to Humber, where Aziraphale had left more of his put-away thoughts. Surveying them, he knew it wouldn’t do to stop and settle now. He crossed the room to look down to the street, busy with the foot traffic of gift-buying and last hours at work. He resolved that he _would_ go back to his journey, but after a break for the holiday.

On the sales counter sat a pile of post and the concert ticket that matched a photo message from Crowley from the day before. A singleton with its friend missing, accompanied only by a note with a question mark and a time that would make allowance for a pre-dinner drink in the bar. The post was equally lovely. Amidst the charity-thank-yous for various donations made along the way, and festive cards from his various friends and business acquaintances, a gilt-edged celebration of a different sort. Pete on his own pilgrimage, now home from the north-east coast and thinking to his future. A wedding invitation for April:

> _Don’t know if you do human things like this, but it’s open-bar and Jo would love to meet you._

Later refreshed, changed, and on his way out, he was wrapping his scarf around his neck when it occurred to him to check. He turned back to the tree and gave it careful study. The feathered magpie, cheeky and bold at the top of the pine, and...yes, there. Another, this one made of hammered tin, hidden in a recess of boughs. 

You never saw a single magpie. They always did prefer company.

* * *

He slowed his walk at the entrance to Wigmore Hall, but a glance into the long foyer, thronging with the concert crowd, made him turn away and take another circle around the garden square nearby. How unsettling it would be to start a conversation with Crowley only to be interrupted and rung in to the music. Better to arrive with enough time for half a glass.

The traditionalists in their black suits and sparkly dresses were heaving off outerwear as he shouldered his way through the narrow hall, the cloakroom queue too long already. Aziraphale removed his own coat and scarf, taking the stairs down to the bar and scanning the room. The tide was turning as patrons ambled past him up to the hall, though the bar was still busy. 

Not a creature built for stealth work, Crowley was always a standout in any crowd, in any century. Here the understated lighting ignored the decorator’s wishes and focused a champagne sparkle on the demon: perched on a high stool, one long leg over another in a fall of shiny black, gesticulating to the bartender with a matching fingernail on the wine list.

Aziraphale stood still for a second, taking in Crowley’s long lines leaning over the bar, a deep wine-coloured jumper soft and draping in contrast to the usual snug fit, the back of the top slashed through at intervals to show glimpses of skin. 

For a moment the heat of the room had Aziraphale back on the Euphrates, his hand hovering, his mind reeling. He felt a swooping sensation as he came closer to the bar, heat prickling. He recalled the brush of the demon’s hair across his own skin, and found he was just as fascinated by how Crowley wore it now, a fall across the front and the curving occipital of skull unveiled by a precise shave.

Perhaps his thoughts bled out like they had done in that long-ago boat, because Crowley turned away from the bar with a glamorous swish of diamond earrings. Aziraphale’s reflection was now bronze-pink in mirrored sunglasses; he saw himself break into a helpless smile, cheeks flushed. His coat became a heavy encumbrance in his arms as he took the last few steps to reach the demon.

“Last time I checked London was still the same time zone as the rest of the country?” A teasing tone.

“Crowley. My dear, I’m so sorry I’m late, I—”

Eyebrows raised, ever-enquiring.

“Is there time for a drink, do you think? What are you having? You look—”

“Tea, actually, the wine list is shit—”

“—lovely, and I am a bit rumpled, oh yes, that smells heavenly—”

“—just an old jumper—”

“Excuse me, yes, I’ll have whatever the—” He looked at Crowley.

“— _lady_ is having, nice work, angel.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t like to presume.” 

The demon flittered between presentations of their corporation often enough that was no discernable meaning to the change. The haircut meant something, perhaps.

The man on the stool next to Crowley suddenly decided to take his seat in the hall. Aziraphale set down his coat as the bartender served the tea: a decoction of rose and cloves, and Aziraphale couldn’t parse it out from whatever fragrance sat in the hollow of Crowley’s collarbones. Perhaps that was the point.

She peered at him over the tops of her glasses. “So, the wanderer returns.”

The tea was still hot. He blew across the top, cast a gaze down to the floor. Where to start?

She was wearing embroidered slippers, the sort that were last fashionable in Renaissance Florence. “Are those your _pyjama_ trousers?”

“Eh, I wear what I want. How’s my car?”

“Oh! Perfectly well-behaved.”

A snort.

“And excellent company, her radio has such eclectic taste.”

“Marvellous, her job is done if you’ve discovered Gerry and the Pacemakers. How’s your parallel parking?”

“Excuse me, angels have been parallel-parking chariots of fire since before humans got the hang of the wheel.”

“Yeah, but not the Principality Aziraphale,” Crowley ran a finger over the scallop brooch on his coat. Her diamond bracelet, all glittering links, flashed in the light.

His thoughts similarly refracted. “She’s very popular, you know,” he said after a woolly pause, “couldn’t take her to a town with a Saturday market without a crowd of fans all wanting a picture. I think she might have her own hashtag—”

Crowley left off her examination of the brooch as her fingers twitched to her phone, eyes narrowing.

“—and she won a prize at a car show I ended up at quite by mistake. I was tagging along with a couple of other drivers out to a deer park in Shropshire and—wait a moment, I might have the rosette on me.”

“Aziraphale.”

“Hmm? Oh, maybe it’s—”

The hand on his was light, liquid; before he registered it fully, she lifted it away. “Are you alright?”

Oh.

“Because it’s been all social enterprises and hermit trails and endless churches. Are you—here, give me a number on the tickety-boo scale.”

He would never say that Crowley looked stricken, because he’d seen what that looked like on his friend, but there was a crease between her eyes that even the fashionable glasses didn’t hide.

_Oh._

Aziraphale closed his eyes; right now, he was keeper to a menagerie of experience, superintendent over sounds and smells that needed a strong hand and the occasional bucket of cold water. But he was okay. He was.

“Oh my dear. Thank you. I should say definitely more tickety than boo.”

“Good.” Relief shook out Crowley’s creases as she slithered off the chair and held out her arm. 

“Wait, that _is_ good, right? Tickety is good, boo is bad? Speak English, you bloody numpty.”

They went in to the music.

Easy enough to slip out again before the final movement—the Ravel was enjoyable, but it was the Sibelius that would follow the intermission that he was particularly eager to hear.

The bar was near-empty as Crowley procured them a bottle of “nearly-palatable” Argentinian Malbec. Aziraphale sat waiting at a corner table, finding that the moment to himself without the busy, urgent press of humans to the side of him was much needed.

Crowley approached, heading to slide into the banquette next to him, then changed course without hesitation to sit opposite. She pulled her glasses off and the razor-precise diagonal of her hair sheeted down to cover half her face. Aziraphale reached out to gently push it behind her ear then let his hand fall to his lap.

Crowley’s lips curved; her eyes smiled. She poured for them both. “Now,” she said, and there was a hint of steel in her voice. “Tell me the things that made you happy.”

The command was helpful, allowing him to marshal himself usefully.

He told her about the people he’d met and the love he’d felt. How there’d always been a spark of it, a seed-kernel, in every place and person. A change in the seasons, the right catalyst for growth, and it would bloom. 

He pulled out his pocket telephone and they bent together over the screen. Her scent was rose and pepper, he decided. That brought out the photos of the gardens he’d been to, the dramatic landscapes that had given him awed pleasure along with visceral sense of his own size and obscurity on this earthly plane.

He looked up from shots of Cumbria to see the bar was getting busier. “It’s been difficult,” he admitted.

“Oh, angel,” Crowley said. “We knew it would be, but I know that doesn’t help.” She traced a fingertip along the stem of her glass. “So many photographs of baptismal fonts and lady-chapels—I’m assuming on that basis that there haven’t been too many awkward memories about me?”

Dear, generous Crowley, giving him her vulnerability when he himself was feeling so out of sorts. “More than a few, as suspected.”

“But nothing—?”

He moved to reassure. “Nothing that’s made it difficult.”

“Mmm.”

Aziraphale considered his wine and the now-crowded room. “I think I was visiting so many churches more for the glory of their spaces than for their passion. It was getting a bit much, to be honest. Here in London one sets one’s own speed and direction, and gets along quite nicely. Out on the road, so much was unrelentingly at human scale.” He hastened to add, “And I adore it, don’t misunderstand me, but—”

“Claustrophobic? It made your head hurt and your wings ache.”

“Well, yes.” He hesitated, then confessed, “I unfurled them on a beach. It was glorious, but I don’t think I put them away properly! Tried to give a nice young man a lift and he nearly went into Raptures.”

“Classy, Aziraphale, classy.”

It was in laughter that they adjourned to the second half.

A much better bottle of wine after the Sibelius, in a much fancier bar, and a contest to see whose lungs could reproduce the richly layered chords from the _Adagio._

“Please, sir, madam. The other patrons.”

Aziraphale, a little giddy on the oxygen, mustered up an apology, while Crowley smirked, “You are not sorry, angel.”

“You’re right, they were being treated to the music of the spheres, and they should be so lucky.”

“Ha.” Crowley flicked the balloon of her glass. It rang, lingering; Aziraphale told her about the bell-ringers he’d met at Coventry, the mathematics of ringing the changes, the teenagers with a gift for numbers composing a new peal. 

“And the roof, Crowley, you would love the geometry of it.”

“Difficult for me to have a deep appreciation for ecclesiastical architecture, no matter how much of a modernist masterpiece it’s meant to be.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Actually, you remind me to make an exception for the Sagrada Familia next year. Gotta see that, can’t believe they finally finished it. Anyway, tell me about the tower.”

Aziraphale found himself stuck on Crowley going to Catalonia.

“Go on then,” she prompted.

He told her about the view from Coventry’s tower, and the panorama from Kinder Scout in the Peaks, and the woodland walk down from Durham. Crowley kept listening, her eyes brightly attentive. And so he described the endless sands of The Wirral, and the desolate timeless beauty of Lindisfarne, and the russeting forest in Lancashire where he’d stopped the car and simply sat looking at the trees before driving on. 

“Aha, so it’s all about the vista with you, isn’t it?” Crowley bent her head to Aziraphale’s photo collection, swiping through and nodding as he described places and people. “Ooh, where’s this?”

Aziraphale glanced down.

“Birmingham. The new library.” He willed his tone to stay steady. “I was trying to show how the moving staircases rise up through the books.”

“Yeah, nice. This atrium here,” she tapped, “you liked that?”

“It’s open to the sky, but then there are all sorts of round, snug places. Oh, I did like it.”

“Steal any bookcases?” she asked, sly, but there was something else, some ravenous interest on her face for a second as she slid the phone back over to him.

He wanted to touch her hand very badly, and so he did.

“There’s still time,” he said, his fingers spreading across hers. Their fingers linked, the diamond cocktail ring she wore digging a little into his skin. “Plenty of libraries to plunder.”

Crowley’s fingers crooked under his, and she shifted closer across the table. Her slippered foot tapped gently at his shoe. “More to see then? The open road yet calls?”

Aziraphale had found his place on this island, but he’d lived in other places longer, in the vast stretches before history named things and counted time. The idea of having a place to come back to, a friend to come back to, was really only centuries old. He was being silly, really. He was an _angel_ of the Lord. And Crowley’s business was her own. There had been many occasions where they were in accord, but not in tandem. He shouldn’t feel so—

He couldn’t bring himself to ask: _Will you be here when I return?_ Instead, he asked around it. “I know you’re thinking of. Well. You have projects, don’t you, and I—”

Crowley moved their hands, placing Aziraphale’s palm face up on the table so her thumb could stroke against its creases. “You’re something else.” There was an admiring undernote to her voice, and perhaps something else. “I’ve known you since the humans named the stars, and you still think you can pull one over. Something’s on your mind, angel. You said the memories were alright, but—the Peaks, you said.” She pulled her hand free, leaned back. “Did you, did you go anywhere else in Derbyshire?”

“Hmm? No.” Aziraphale was thinking on ahead. “Listen, would you like to come with me for part of the next leg? I’ll be heading to the West Country, and I know how you enjoy a good wassail.”

Crowley looked thoughtful for a moment long enough for Aziraphale to begin marshalling his persuasive arguments. But as he started to speak, she toasted him. 

“OK. Yes. I’ll drink to thee. Let’s go to Gloucestershire in the arse-end of January and get drunk in a field. Now, come on, get your kit on. You’re lagging, and your bookshop has been patiently waiting for your return.”

Halfway into his coat and being ushered out of the bar, Aziraphale realised, “I was thinking a Somerset wassail.”

“Nahhh, oh fine, you pick our destination but I’m choosing the song.”

They continued the lively debate ("White maple!") out into the street (“No, the cup is made of _ash._ ”), but after a few moments it became clear that they were both lingering on the curb.

He glanced east towards Soho, then south towards Mayfair. 

Crowley’s cool mouth touched his cheek and her hair brushed his skin. He shivered. 

“Let me choose your destination tonight. You’ll go home and _rest_. In your own place, with your own things, and those mince pies I nicked off the witch for you. I’ll be over in a day or so to let you cook for me, and you can pick the song.”

“You loathe Christmas carols.”

“I do. Victorian claptrap. But I’ll listen to them, with you, if you save me a mince pie. Merciless mocking requires sustenance.”

“Perfect.”

“You say that now.”

Aziraphale told her, “I’m sure I’ll say it then too.”

Crowley’s grin was crooked; blinding. “See you soon then, angel.” She sauntered off down the street.

He watched her until even his eyes could no longer catch her light, then turned his own feet for home.

### Authors' Notes

 **Avebury stone circles  
** “It [[Avebury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avebury)] does as much exceed in greatness the so renowned Stonehenge as a Cathedral doeth a parish church.” (John Aubrey, _Monumenta Britannica_ )  
“Trufax.” (The authors)

 **Charitable donation “thank-yous”  
**Crowley insists on doing the shop’s annual taxes so Aziraphale always makes sure to have the paperwork in order for him. (“You donate to charities, they produce unnecessary paper waste, I take money back for you from the government that would otherwise fund those charities; just your bog-standard wiles-thwarting, really.”)

 **Christmas trees in churches  
**Every December, churches across the UK have tree festival events where charities and community organisations design Christmas trees for display. Members of the public make donations and choose their favourites. The Collegiate Church of St Mary in Stafford is one such host.

 **Crowley’s jewellery  
** The earrings are [ these ](https://www.instagram.com/p/BcLse2OhiBD/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) diamond briolette drops and the bracelet is [ this ](https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2011/magnificent-jewels-and-noble-jewels-ge1102/lot.485.lotnum.html) jaw-dropping bit of deco fabulousness by Boucheron. Should these not be to your taste (a) we can’t help you, and (b) pick something you like from Becky Stone’s instagram [@diamondsinthelibrary](https://www.instagram.com/diamondsinthelibrary/).

 **Euphrates, Water vessels of the  
** Look, if historical accuracy has been lost by having a Sumerian _rowboat_ instead some sort of thing made out of reeds and a pole, at least Aziraphale got to perv on the demon’s shoulders. You don’t hear him complaining.

 **Fortnum & Mason’s ** **_Petit Four_ ** **Mince Pie Medley  
** Taste like Heaven, but clearly in the Devil’s [food hamper](https://www.fortnumandmason.com/products/christmas-mince-pie-mini-medley-560g).

 **Knife Angel**  
An incredibly evocative piece of [sculpture](https://www.britishironworkcentre.co.uk/index.php/show-areas/the-knife-angel-official/the-making-of-the-knife-angel) and social commentary.

 **Library of Birmingham  
** If you live in the UK, you will at some point travel by train through Birmingham New Street. We strongly advise you to get off the train. Head out through the Bullring. Follow the signs to the [Library of Birmingham](https://www.mecanoo.nl/Projects/project/57/Library-of-Birmingham?t=0). Enter the People’s Palace. Gawp. Enjoy. Do a bit of research, a bit of dreaming. Find your imagination fired up by the thought that a city built this twenty-first century civic space for you.

 **Men in Sheds  
** Started by Age UK, [sheds](https://www.ageuk.org.uk/services/in-your-area/men-in-sheds/) all around the UK bringing men together where they might otherwise be isolated.

 **Shakespeare collection in Birmingham  
**Great [story](https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/nostalgia/night-britains-biggest-collection-shakespeares-11219764). **  
**

**_Sleigh Ride  
_ ** The Bentley goes with [The Ronettes/Phil Spector](https://open.spotify.com/track/5ASM6Qjiav2xPe7gRkQMsQ?si=aesFUpP6RuGleV1O6sBPIw) version of course.

 **Wigmore Hall concert  
** Sibelius’s  _Voces Intimae_ is not your average quartet piece, but the chords wend their way into that bony bits behind your ears and make you tighten your shoulderblades. Afterwards they went to Jack Solomons and talked about boxing.  
  


####    
Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 10

[All Hail to the Days](https://open.spotify.com/track/2dVXShXlZUaQJ9ZtYIsIk2?si=EfzovqzrQLqNMOTtlHe_Kg)  
The Revels Chorus

[Into Forever](https://open.spotify.com/track/5qw9Dh37lQISrMDlGnLga3?si=thafqez1RMqO9W5WeWrSlQ)  
Matthew Halsall, The Gondwana Orchestra, Josephine Oniyama  
  


#### Perfume

[ Le Mat, by Mendittorosa ](https://bloomperfume.co.uk/products/le-mat?variant=1188562042899)  
Tea and a Demon at Wigmore Hall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/618926226857476096/planning-permission). In which, we get annoyed and charmed by the island on which we make our home.


	11. Holborn & Chelsea, 1783

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning for a brief scene involving medical surgery: see endnotes.
> 
> And a reminder note: we take a break in between each part for editing and so the next chapter will be up in a week. Good thing we wrote a long one and earned that M rating ;)

Stanthorpe eyed Crowley’s nearly-full plate, as he’d done many a time over the past seven years. Son of an earl, but he put such a quantity of food away, and at such a pace, it was as though he were afraid he’d never see enough of it. 

(To the point where Crowley had checked Downstairs to make sure his cultivation of the man wasn’t encroaching on the Gluttony division’s territory—nope, just an entitled idiot with an appetite, then.)

“Hungry?” asked Crowley, on cue. He slid over the remainder of the roast mutton and potatoes.

“I shall miss your suppers, Crowley, if not your face.”

“Pffft, we have an agreement, which means you’ll be seeing plenty of my face. My suppers, for an entrée into your circle whenever I need it. And since we’re _finally_ getting out, that means you’re throwing a party next week.”

Stanthorpe, with half a potato in his mouth, suddenly appeared to realise the social ramifications of making a deal with a smooth-talking pupil of lofty ambition, limited familial connections, and probable Whig tendencies.

“Could be worse,” Crowley reassured him. “At least I have money.”

“Oh yes. Quite.”

He’d seen Mammon eat; Stanthorpe was only moderately less off-putting. 

When he’d had the idea originally—return to London, update that Bologna law degree for mischief in these modern fast-paced times—he’d forgotten that it would involve such close association with _humans_. No, all he’d been thinking was that he’d be combining full-time study with full-time Aziraphale for the seven justifiable years of continuing professional development at Gray’s Inn. 

Aziraphale’s own career development for this hustling century was medicine. He’d taken a long hard look at healing after the last round of plague and judged himself no longer up to scratch. “Hardly anyone lets you near them with general miracle and a laying-on of hands anymore. They’d rather pills and forceps and a long discourse on Nerves.”

The angel’s current persona was that of a toff with a book habit (clearly a stretch), but he never did anything by halves when there was a thing to be learned. So he had embraced the label of eccentric, apprenticed himself to a surgeon at St George’s, and enrolled in a pupillage at the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. Crowley had yet to see him in action, but gained satisfaction from the fact that he’d matriculated faster than the angel, who lost ground by actually researching all his essays.

Resolutely ignoring Stanthorpe and his chewing, he turned his attention to the conversation further along. Mostly self-congratulatory codswallop from his fellow former Benchers, now Readers all. Those who hadn’t made the cut had slunk out in ignominity over the last few years. Crowley, on the other hand, was well-used to more rigorous performance reviews than nightly case grillings over chops and claret.

Ah, but they were discussing the continued fall-out from the Gordon Riots. A few years ago now, but there was nothing like some anti-Catholic zealotry to rattle through a City’s law-books at a time when everyday folk were beginning to value their rights and property, thanks ever so nicely. Well-lubricated by this point in a day of celebration, the talk moved smoothly into the particulars of a case that Crowley hadn’t yet heard about, but that sounded delightfully fiendish in its intricacies.

“Gentlemen! Please be upstanding for the toast.”

The sound of chairs scraping. He slid to his feet and gave the barest raise to his glass. The wine was passable, but Satan, the tedium.

His George-ness, check, though there had been rumours of abdication flying throughout the capital for years now, only some of which Crowley had directly encouraged. And God, sure, why not; he’d never taken issue with toasting whomever they _thought_ they were addressing because it certainly wasn’t Her. And on and on and on. The Inn itself (“ _Domus_ ”), its absent members (lucky bastards), a bit of a jibe to rivals at Inner Temple, gossip from Chancery, Stanthorpe trying to subtly fork a potato into his mouth but dropping it to roll under his chair...

“Lord Fell! I insist that you answer to me at once!”

Huh. Crowley would certainly raise his glass to _that_.

The gentlemen of the room stirred as another shout rang from the courtyard outside. 

“I will happily, sir. You would be a thief and a coward! I demand you give up this claim to my—”

“Book,” mouthed Crowley, just as the angel’s voice sounded like Judgement:

“My book!”

“I say,” said Stanthorpe. “Is that your Fell? And...Grenville, is it?”

Crowley shot him a grin, and elbowed his way past him to the casement. Through the smudges and leading he could just make out the blocky figure of Aziraphale, feet planted and shoulders set. He lifted the latch and threw the window open, half-hanging out to shout:

“Come on, angel! Kick him in the gingambobs!”

“Mr Crowley!” One of the Inn’s Ancients motioned for him to make viewing space.

“Just encouraging Lord Fell, sir.”

“An acquaintance of yours, eh wot?” The senior barrister eyed Crowley with more interest than he had in the past three years, including when Crowley had bloody clerked for the man.

“Known him for ages,” said Crowley, balancing his tone between obsequious student and cocky bastard. He’d been called to the Bar and published Barrister by the Treasurer only that very morning; wouldn’t be a good idea for his burgeoning career to say, _fuck right off,_ demon-style. He compromised on a temptation. “He’s much tougher than he looks. And he fights like a mad cockerel when his temper’s high.”

“Oh?” The Ancient waved for the attention of one of the more enterprising junior Benchers already taking odds.

“Lord Fell!” Crowley called out from the Great Hall. “Alright there?”

In the courtyard, Aziraphale paused in his remonstrance of the rival book collector to crane his head around to the window. He broke into a smile and called out, “Oh, Crowley, did they admit you? My heartiest congratulations—just a jiffy, I’ve a slight matter here.”

Thomas Grenville, gentleman bibliophile and former military man (“No, he is an upstart nuisance and a shifty-eyed overweening snot.”) and the object of the slight matter, stepped aggressively closer to Aziraphale.

“I do insist, Fell, that you return the psalter or face the consequences!”

Around Crowley, his colleagues passed back opinion on the likelihood of fisticuffs, apologies, and pistols south of the Thames. Stanthorpe elbowed his way to peer out the window beside him, a napkin full of dumpling cradled protectively in one hand.

“What’s going on then?”

Indeed. According to Aziraphale—who was usually accurate if editorial in his relating of events—Grenville thought he had a claim on some hymn book or other that the angel had tracked down in France.

(“Yeah, but it’s not up there with the Gutenberg bible though, is it,” Crowley had rolled his eyes.

His bored tone had not gone down well.

“It is the _second_ book ever printed with movable type,” Aziraphale had said through gritted teeth, “so it is precisely ‘up there’ with Gutenberg.”)

“Fell’s deuced mad ‘cos Grenville keeps trying to get a fancy songbook off him.” Crowley kept an ear on the exchange out in the courtyard. “I bet he’s been stalking him hoping to nick it.”

“More likely,” said the Ancient who had opened up another of the casement windows to poke out a beak, “Mr Grenville is here to instruct a solicitor?”

“Yeah probably,” he said absently, leaning on the frame with sudden interest. Aziraphale had removed his frock coat—sky blue and cream trim, how many miracles must it take to keep _that_ clean in the London grime—and was folding it carefully over his arm.

“Mr Grenville,” Aziraphale said, measured in the face of Grenville’s red-faced ire, “the psalter is mine. I have documentation and a bill of sale, which is more than you reportedly have for the—”

Here he went off into a litany of obscure manuscript speak; Satan bless, it was so fetching when Aziraphale got wound up. Crowley wondered if anyone else could feel the rumbling timbre of an angel spaking unto them or whether the vibrations he was feeling were because said angel was down to his shirtsleeves.

Aziraphale stood examining his fingernails and knuckles in a way that did not speak of de-escalation. Then he was unbuttoning one wrist and very deliberately turning over a cuff, folding back the blinding white linen up to his elbow.

Crowley practically fell out of the window to be rewarded by the flash of laurel, pricked in indigo, flexing on that forearm.

Grenville finally took a clue on what was happening and stepped backwards. “Are you threatening me, Fell? By Jove I shall—”

“Not at all,” Aziraphale didn’t look up, but even at this distance there was a set to his jaw and a flush on his cheeks that reminded Crowley so very strikingly of an early morning in Clapham, teasing the angel about his subterfuge in pursuit of of a home for his acquisitions.

“Simply a warm day,” Aziraphale continued, shifting his coat to his other arm and peeling back the sleeves again. Hells teeth, surely those strapping forearms were giving Grenville pause. They were certainly giving Crowley—hold on. 

Engage a solicitor, the tutor had said.

“ _I’m_ a solicitor!” Crowley dropped back inside and whirled to Stanthorpe, who startled and mouthed “Yes?” in confusion. Crowley pushed past him and yelled, “Sixty to one Grenville gives way,” at the nearest man with a notebook.

He took the stairs five at a time, skimmed past the globe lanterns, and shouldered his way out the main doors, slowing to a gentlemanly stroll to turn the corner for the courtyard.

Despite his attempts at reasonableness, Aziraphale was glowering, and it looked dangerously like the cravat might be the next step in the striptease. No faking out that move as anything other than preparation for a punch in the nose. 

“Put your clothes back on, angel,” he said, entirely against his own internal inclinations. He nodded to the window, where he could make out the black and be-wigged figures of several nosing colleagues. “We all heard this person make a public claim on property to which you assert your legal right and could hitherto produce the proper documentation.” The hitherto was a bit unnecessary but when you spent seven years slinging around forthwiths and promissory estoppels some things just slipped out.

Aziraphale’s frown melted away to brightness, so the legalese was good for that if nothing else.

He turned to Grenville. “And so, sir,” he said for the benefit of the Ancient still at the window. It wouldn’t do to get a reprimand two hours into the profession. “You should avail yourself of the legal men at the window right sharpish, unless your pockets unearth a documentary claim on this alleged property to the contrary, because we are all of an opinion that what we have witnessed was a defamatory statement on Lord Fell’s character—”

“See here, you crow,” Grenville started. 

Crowley brushed the glint of the sunshine off the fine weave of his black wool coat, which sent Aziraphale chortling.

“Fell _dares_ cry libel at me when he is the one who must prove this _tosh_!”

He reached back to straighten the probate ribbon that held his hair in place and gave Aziraphale an eye-roll. “Fortunately for Lord Fell, his choice of words was sensibly circumspect and well-seasoned with ‘allegedly’ and ‘reportedly’ in all the correct places.” Crowley shook his head in mock-sympathy. “I am sorry to say, sir, that it is my newly-professed opinion—” 

He paused to appreciate the encouraging squeeze of his arm from an angel pleased as punch and twice as silly.

“—that your case would stand very little chance in comparison, and should you like to take more detailed advice this first six minutes has been _pro bono,_ however, for any further consultation you must apply to the day clerk.”

Grenville’s face was thunderous, and his mouth worked a few shapes that looked like words, but nothing but spittle came out.

“Quite,” said Crowley, making sure that Aziraphale had rolled his sleeves back down and that Grenville had turned heel to stalk off before turning to the window with a thumbs-up. “Oi, Stanthorpe! Collect my wager, there’s a mate.”

Aziraphale flicked his gaze up from the pearl buttons at his cuffs. “So what odds did you have on me?”

Crowley laughed and took the coat handed to him. “Odds were on me and my mad legal smooth-talking. I know better than to put a bet on a cranky agent of Heaven.”

“I still do want to punch him,” Aziraphale groused. “He’s so _proud_ of his lending library.”

Straightening out Aziraphale’s coat, he reflected that one reason for the angel’s ire wasn’t just the rapacity of the enthusiastic collector, but the fact that Grenville had a permanent home for his library while Aziraphale’s collection was still scattered in trunks and rooms across the City. The less valuable volumes took up the attic of a pub in Fleet Street, and Crowley had lost track of the rest of it.

He held out the coat. Aziraphale slid one arm then another inside, and turned with a happy flourish.

“Thank you, my dear.”

Crowley waved a hand. “Don’t go picking fights; you’re the one meant to be mixing elixir and setting bones, not _breaking_ them. Besides,” he continued, “you’ll get a reputation, and I intend to charge you fees like any other being.”

“Very professional of you.” Aziraphale said encouragingly. He looked up at the sunny sky and smiled. “To other business?”

* * *

“Ranelagh Gardens,” Crowley said to the driver, as Aziraphale hoisted himself up into the carriage, all indecent definition of calf muscle and no thought for onlookers.

“And no rush,” Crowley added, congratulating his past self, who had gone for the snug two-seater sports model, clearly anticipating a jaunt like this.

They clattered off down Chancery Lane.

“And so what devilry shall you unleash with this?” Aziraphale unrolled the diploma—an unnecessarily ornate piece of parchment with a wax seal and a whole ink bottle’s worth of calligraphy—and held it up suspiciously to the carriage window to examine the signature.

“I just watched the Chief Justice sign that not an hour gone, you doubting Thomas!”

The angel sniffed, feeling the paper between his finger and finely-manicured thumb. “You never can be too careful.” His expression brightened. “Will you set up as a practising barrister? I should love to try the menu at the Wig and Pen.”

Crowley definitely felt the calfskin-booted toe of a peckish angel hook around the back of his ankle.

“Eh, bit of column A, bit of column B. I’ll keep the law thing on the boil but I’ve a few other irons in the fire.”

A frown. “Surely no more professional qualifications?”

“Says he who’s swotting up as a medical man! Everyone’s got a side-hustle this century, haven’t you noticed? That Grenville chap is half MP and half book-collector—”

“Book _thief—_ ”

Crowley laughed. “Calm your tits, angel, you’ve got the bloody hymn book, don’t you?”

A wiggle. “Well.”

“As I was saying, I’ve got a mate who’s a lawyer and a banker _and_ an artist, I mean, even the Duchess of Devonshire fancies herself a poet now. Anyhow. Seeing as you’ve commandeered my carriage under the premise of a working stroll through the pleasure gardens—”

Affronted as only an ethereal being could be when their authentically good intentions overlapped with their own gratification, Aziraphale opened his mouth to protest.

Crowley nudged him with a grin. “It’s _my_ special day and we’re conveniently on our way to Chelsea, so let’s pop out to your secret apothecary garden and you can smuggle me in as your plus one.” 

The Apothecaries were very strict about who they let into their fancy physic garden. While Crowley could and did waltz in any time he liked, if there was one thing that the Principality Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, loved to do, it was a bit of role play.

“You could be my day labourer,” the angel mused.

“You’ll do your own labouring with those shoulders, thanks very much. What that idiot thought he might achieve by taking you on, I don’t know.” 

Aziraphale went slightly pink in his cheeks, and Crowley felt the particular half-thrill, half-dread that washed over him whenever he incited a little nibble of the seven deadlies. 

Pressing on, he said: “No, I’ll be your gentleman friend, a natural philosopher who sailed barques to the Indies in his youth.”

“Oh! Of course, plant collecting!”

“Do keep up. I like plants, they don’t talk back or plead innocent.”

The foot that was hooked behind his own swivelled in uncertainty. “So this is your other iron in the fire, then? Adventures abroad?”

As if. He was still having quite a lot of fun here with his favourite acquisition of the eighteenth century. He shrugged, nonchalant. “Nah, no need. Lots of new stuff coming in from the Far East, the Amazon—who knows what we can get the humans addicted to next. I’m quite proud of snuff.”

Aziraphale beamed at him, then quickly schooled his face into some semblance of disapproval, then gave the whole thing up for a bodge job. Rightly so. Crowley had seen the way a little collection of snuff boxes was starting to rival the misprinted bibles for angelic enthusiasm.

The angel patted his breeches at the knee in anticipation. “So. _You’re_ a botanist—”

“Ooh, you can name-drop my illustrious ancestor who was in the employ of the Duchess of Beaufort.”

“The Duchess of Beaufort, that old tyrant, how many times did she fire you? Did you know, children still talk about her in hushed tones, ooh don’t climb that tree, Scary Mary will come and shake you down.”

Crowley grinned. “What a corker she was.” 

Just then the carriage careened its way at speed to turn from the Strand around the Charing Cross. They both gestured to halt the tipping vehicle; combined, it was too much force, and so while the carriage righted it then kept on righting until it was wronging again to the left. Crowley put out a desisting hand to cover Aziraphale’s own, and then set them back on the road into St James.

“Quit the back-seat driving and get your own,” Crowley chided. He conveniently neglected to remove his hand as they sailed around the corner past Buckingham House.

“My dear, why would I bother to do that?” Aziraphale settled back against the squabs, thigh pressed comfortably against his own, and only moved when it came time to ask the postilion to fetch his Chelsea buns, there’s a good chap.

“Fireworks this evening?” Crowley asked once he’d made sure the treats were safely stowed out of reach and the driver instructed to take a loop up to the Kings Road. “I heard they’ve got some of those hot-air _ballons_.” Ranelagh Gardens wasn’t cool, _per se_ , but he did prefer it to the teeming humanity at Vauxhall (where half that humanity would be snogging in its bushes).

“Oh, I imagine we could.” The angel dimpled. “We’ve got provisions, and our business surely won’t take that long.”

“Right, our business. No rest for the wicked.” Crowley pulled out his parchment. “Get yours, then, and let’s compare.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale hesitated, a far cry from his earlier bluster.

He was immediately suspicious. “What? Give yours here.” He took the reluctant offering and scanned it. “And this is straight from your Head Office, is it?”

Aziraphale snatched it back before Crowley stopped laughing, his expression moving from chagrin to uppity.

“These tasks all meet my main directives,” Aziraphale said, with one list in each hand. “I’ve had no complaints and I don’t have a performance review for another ten years—besides, I can’t even wrap my head around some of these on your list, what possible point is there stunting some poor Corsican teenager’s growth while he’s still in school?”

“Yeah, that one’s a long shot,” Crowley agreed, though he’d seen a great deal of misery arise from short man syndrome and the Bonaparte kid definitely had delusions of grandeur. 

“But ‘fess up. These are all suspiciously enjoyable and mostly local acts of holy outreach on this list.” 

He lifted his glasses up to survey Aziraphale approvingly, ready to needle him on his creative license in slacking off. It was clear—had been _so_ clear, for years now—that the angel wasn’t necessarily doing more than keeping up appearances. Fastidious in fulfilling the letter of the job description: blessings and miraculous visitations and inducements for Good Works, but they were hardly the taxing, far-flung, sometimes-questionably-Good tasks that characterised his first few millennia on Earth. It was hard to remember the last time Aziraphale had some mission of Almighty Wrath that wasn’t a convenient retrospective claim on a flood or an earthquake. Actual smiting? Centuries ago now.

Not to say that the job hadn’t changed as the humans multiplied and invented and crowded the earth. Crowley had convinced Beelzebub and the rest that speculative interventions like “voyages of discovery” produced much more long-term yield in terms of human suffering and consequent souls for the pits. High-risk, high reward, and as long as one or two of Crowley’s intricate plots came off every century then his low productivity in the traditional artforms of temptation and transgression were overlooked. 

These days, even for those, he mostly just proposed a few fun bits of damnation-craft where the human in question didn’t need much of a shove. Throw in a couple of wheezes he could swap with Aziraphale, cross fingers for a rubber stamp from Below, done.

Something in the angel’s posture made Crowley think further teasing wouldn’t go down well, and he was blessed if he was going to do anything to stop Aziraphale’s increasingly relaxed attitude about the demands of Heaven, not when those demands were increasingly few and far between. Why make a fuss? 

So he left it.

Sort of.

“‘A bountiful harvest for Monsieur and Madam Cliquot’, eh?” 

“A promising vineyard, just establishing itself, and you know the summers have been chancy of late.”

 _How_ the angel kept that serious expression—nope, there it went, turning into a smile reflected in the window.

“Shall I do that one then, knock it off after I see to this kid in Paris?”

“Hmm. Maybe? I fancied a mini-break away though. But you are, as established, better in the gardening domain. Fine, yes please. What do you have for me?”

Crowley leaned across to run a finger down his demonic parchment. “Bog standard lust and anger combo in the Lakes, if you were after the scenery?”

“Oh, my dear, that’s a _bit_ far, the roads are terrible. Although there is that wonderful young poet.” Aziraphale trailed off to look out the window, where other carriages were slowing alongside theirs at the garden gates. “It’s just so nice here in late summer. Let’s see what else.”

Bloody fussy. “Right, from the top: Paris boy, marital discord in the Lakes, a couple of policy ideas in Parliament—no, you can’t have those, specialist skills required—”

Aziraphale held up his hands _: all yours, I know my limits._

They ran through the others, trading off locations; Crowley skipping over anything too far-flung or complex, Aziraphale apologising for miracles that needed proper divinity.

Aha. Crowley paused. “Riot down in Dorset, whipping folk up about suffrage?”

“Protesting injustice isn’t exactly sinful, is it?”

“Weeeellllll,” he hedged, “on paper it leads to casualties and retribution.” Riots were one of those jobs you could really sink your teeth into if you wanted, or knock them off in a quick afternoon.

There was a worryingly thoughtful look on the angel’s face, the sort that indicated he might come back from the assignment with a sorry-not-sorry and the beginning of a social revolution.

“Never mind,” Crowley said hurriedly, “I’ll do that one. Got to meet a ship in Portsmouth anyhow. Oh, hang on, this is the one.”

He tapped a line on the page that read “Addiction and Dissolution”, together with the name of a prominent London judge.

Aziraphale crossed his hands in his lap and looked at him sideways. “Please tell me this isn’t personal.”

No point fibbing. “Technically his name _was_ on a list of high-and-mighties hand-picked by Downstairs, but then he also had a nasty dig at my interpretation of tort law in a packed courtroom, so it’s a little bit personal.”

The carriage came to a slow stop as other vehicles made way for them at the gate. Crowley jumped out and leaned on the carriage door, waiting for Aziraphale to gather his thoughts and his Chelsea buns.

“Well, angel?” 

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes a little, shrewd. 

“Obviously _I_ can’t do it, he thinks he knows who I am.”

“Hmm.”

“And _you_ have access to all those drowsy syrups so beloved of the medical profession.” Crowley waved off the carriage and fell into step beside Aziraphale.

“Gin’s the more obvious choice if you want an ignominious end to his career.”

“Nah, they’re all alcoholics on the bench. A sudden descent into depravity is what’s needed here. Mandrake or opium, make it something nice and sleazy.” 

The woman at the ticket booth—the ticket booth, Satan’s sake, what was next, _queuing_?—gave Crowley a sharp look.

“Please excuse this dreadful excuse for a man,” Aziraphale mollified her. Too brightly, it looked, because when he turned around to let the angel catch him up the woman sat heavily on her stool, fanning herself.

They took a path to the right, and Crowley turned to have an answer.

“Opium.”

He nodded agreement; how could he not?

“Very well, demon.” Aziraphale’s benign countenance was unreadable as he looked up at the trees festooned with garlands and lanterns.

Crowley was seized with the realisation that when it came to earthly pleasures there weren’t that many that his companion left to the realm of the theoretical. 

“Though I think I’ll have another from _you_.” Aziraphale tapped his rolled-up list on Crowley’s arm, right where he’d squeezed delight earlier in the day. “Not a hardship, I hope. There’s a Yorkshire clergyman—”

That sounded boring, but Crowley kept his mouth shut, still turning over thoughts of the angel and poppy-induced euphoria. They wandered the promenade down to the canal, and Aziraphale continued.

“—I believe mostly working on astronomical matters these days, though he published on geology and magnetism—he has the most remarkable ideas about gravity, stars and suchlike, and I thought that was more your area than mine.”

Here there was a quick, furtive glance. In some respects that made him wish he’d never mentioned his work in the firmament to Aziraphale, but Crowley mostly felt numb on those matters of ancient history. 

He waved a hand. “Go on, get on with it.”

“Just needs a wee nudge in the right direction.”

“Celestial inspiration?” Crowley grinned. Nice. Visions and revelations were his favourite bit of miracle working. Omens and prophecies were standard tools of the trade, no matter if you were demon or angel. But blessings were rough: they left him feeling metaphysically sandpapered and he had to sleep for days.

A good epiphany, though. Done right, you cut off the oxygen, took an elemental rummage through the cortex and put on a fancy light show to make the human feel special. Immediate results, positive feedback.

“Deal.” Crowley clapped his hands together. A quick jaunt to the French vineyards, some scientific inspiration, and the angel doing his dirty work as a poppy pusher. And today the Bar, and a hefty wager won, to boot.

“This is meant to be work, Crowley,” Aziraphale admonished, “you’re looking so pleased with yourself I wonder if you aren’t taking our Arrangement seriously.”

“Heaven forfend,” said Crowley, dry, and the answering laugh raised his spirits higher than the balloons lifting off from the grass.

* * *

Paris was gratifyingly chaotic and the mood of the city trembled with it. The Treaty with the Americans had recently been signed; the atmosphere was heady with French _joie du malheur_ over a Great British humiliation. Crowley drank it in with a connoisseur’s appreciation.

Passing through to Brienne, he found the short kid at a military school and made quick work of the curse. And how about that happy coincidence, being in the Champagne region. The vineyard was near Reims: the weather sultry, the chalky soil crumbling against his palm. 

Earthworks were not difficult for Crowley. Something in his make-up, perhaps, though that sort of essentialist wondering could bring the ancient numbness to tingling. And while he was not afraid— _never afraid_ to acknowledge what he had been, what he was now—his power worked through Will and best with Intent. Focus helped. Bringing life, causing decay, neither were inherently good or evil, nor miraculous. They simply _were_. Cause. Effect. Now _those_ were the really interesting bits. 

In the moment, he wasn’t thinking about how this blessing on a grape harvest in these well-traveled times would bring widespread drunken debauchery. Or how a centuries-lasting monoculture in this region would seed local inequality alongside farming tax subsidies and appellation lawsuits. He thought of Aziraphale, and of square, expressive hands and curious eyes, and the way champagne bubbles would tickle delightfully down his throat. 

On the slope of the hill, just before dawn, he stood with toes curled in the dirt, eyes closed, gaze open. Crowley spread his wings, beating them through the air and using their force and flow to add oomph to his _pull._ The shale and rock confining the aquifer broke at his Will, the water flowed freely through, and up, at his demand. 

Vintner’s luck, they said at the _hostellerie_ , but to Crowley it was a honeyed sort of yearning: both satisfying and inciting. He had the urge to travel onward to Sussex, to see how he could compel his own earth. But he returned to London instead as the draw to the angel was more compelling, the promise of a different satisfaction more delicious than any sparkling wine. 

* * *

There was no sign of Aziraphale at his usual haunts. No message left for him at Gray’s, and not even Lord Fell’s beloved Beefeater Club could attest to his whereabouts. 

Fine then, Crowley thought, bad-tempered enough to actually prosecute a fraud case, accidentally convicting a promising young banker who might otherwise have salted away illicit guineas for years. To aggravate matters the Yorkshire clergyman was very much a stay-at-home, and even the fancy carriage couldn’t take the ruts out of the Great North Road. The visit was a wash-out, for John Michell had just received the news that his application for the post of Astronomer Royal was again declined, and he was certainly not in the right frame of mind to receive revelations about the nature of invisible stars. 

Crowley nodded to indicate sympathy, and resigned himself that this wasn’t going to be a quick win. Patience, then.

“Mr Crowley!” Michell’s beetling eyebrows raised in happy recognition some weeks later across the library at Somerset House. Two fawning letters encouraging his visit to the Royal Society had finally done the trick and brought the rector down to London. 

“Your letters have been _most_ stimulating, sir,” he continued, “though I fear my ideas may be nonsensical to some, for they require much expansion of the imagination between the equations of the pen and the points of light observed in our telescopes. I feel as if I hold an end of rope in each hand and know them in my bones to be originally joined, but my eyes see an embroidery thread in the left and a hawser in the right.”

Something in Michell’s willingness to entertain a batshit idea made him less tetchy at the assignment going off course. Though there was still no sign of Aziraphale, Crowley’s own tasks were mostly seen to and the angel _had_ hooked him up with a visitor’s pass at the Physic Garden. He was hardly rough-pressed for amusements.

He followed Michell into one of the new laboratory spaces, glaring off two Fellows tinkering with a vacuum bell, and perched on a stool with the latest manuscript while Michell—his round belly occasionally brushing the differential off an equation—started to fill a blackboard with speculation.

“On my third page, you see,” Michell turned, pointed to a paragraph, and Crowley was hit by backdraft from the whirring, ardent mechanisms of the rector’s mind, a hunger to know the universe in a way that was close enough to desire that the man’s breath came short.

Neither Heaven or Hell claimed responsibility (or even interest) in the scientific revolutions of the age. For Crowley’s part, any envy he’d ever felt at Aziraphale’s ability to bask in fervent religious belief had fallen by the wayside these past centuries.

“It is the double stars that provoked these thoughts, that I return to, again and again,” Michell said, and Crowley, seeing an opening, held out his hands, so the man thought for a moment he was seeing a furnace hover in each upturned palm.

A swallow, a blink, and Michell pushed on. “Why so many hung like this, together? If the Almighty had thrown the stars like seeds across a field, then, it must have been done a million times or more to arrive at where we are now! But it is easily accounted for, if some stars attract one another, if gravity pulls at them, too.”

Crowley brought his hands to meet, extinguishing the light. 

“And if, if, we might know the nature of that pull, that gravitational exertion—” Michell held out his own hands either side of Crowley’s clasped ones, and Crowley swung a pendulum to the left, to the right, and nudged the oscillations in Michell’s thoughts higher in amplitude, lower in frequency.

Michell dropped his hands and slumped. “But Sir Isaac was never able to—”

Fucking _Newton_. 

“None of that,” Crowley said sharply, half annoyed that the breakthrough was almost there without his help, half out of sorts because the little bit of magic he’d been spinning was tangled and useless now, and wholly annoyed at Sir-bloody-Isaac reaching through the decades and giving a bright middle-aged clergyman impostor syndrome. 

“Newton didn’t always get his numerator over his denominator, you know.” He waved at the blackboard. “You should draw. Pictures rather than words.”

It was so obvious this man saw the universe in pictures first and clearest, and when he tried to put it into words, it clouded into murk. While Michell muttered to himself at the chalkboard, Crowley paged through the rough manuscript, wincing at the convoluted sentences and half-connected ideas.

So nearly there, though. Where had Aziraphale come across this giddy, prodigious human? Was he actually an assignment from Above, or some pet project of the angel? For all his careful tending of the boundaries and walls that limited a peek into the Ineffable, Aziraphale had no reluctance about cheerfully leading humans to the mysteries of the cosmos.

“Confounded noise,” Michell turned to the window, away from his board of circles and trajectories. The courtyard was full of hammering stonemasons constructing the new south wing of the building. Crowley kept Michell’s gaze on the activity, slid a chisel into the mental space between the rector’s rusted notions, and loosened the hold of some ideas.

He could puff away the flakes of rust in the space of a breath, solder Michell’s nerves in at the required angles, but this was a hair’s breadth away from the satisfaction of a spectacular Temptation.

After a pause, Michell turned. “Suppose—see, until this spring, an observer on the Thames would look up from the river to perceive this building as Somerset House—” 

Michell paced the length of the room, gesturing to the laboratory, and through the walls on either side to the Library and the artist’s Academy.

“That is, our so-called North Wing, housing the Society, and the antiquarians and the artists and so forth. And yet to see Somerset House on the architect’s plans is to see a South Wing also, the very name of North thus implying the invisible South even _without_ the plans. Mr Crowley, suppose then that if we did have the full measure of attraction between bodies of mass. Of gravity’s pull.” 

Crowley nodded.

“Yes. And so one day if we might measure the behaviour of the paired stars, by our calculation of gravity, and if we then see that some of the lonely suns in the heavens behave as if they were part of a double…then will this be because there are unseen dark stars? Just as even, unseen, one might suppose the existence of a South Wing, knowing the North?”

Now we are getting somewhere, thought Crowley. 

“Is that what you’ve drawn?”

Michell turned back. “I had drawn a star,” he said, chalk dust crunching as he drew, “and a falling body pulled towards it by gravitation. But if instead, if instead we call this a _South_ Wing, and instead of a falling body we consider the movement of an escaping corpuscle of light, which Newton tells us is a particle in straight-line motion—”

He drew an arrow of light emanating from the star, and stepped back.

Crowley gave a thought for poor Robert Hooke, raging over his calculations about light waves, but he would not interrupt the avid cogitation of Michell’s mind now. It turned at pace anew, bringing a loveliness to the plain, round-faced man. Ratchets turned their teeth into one another, and Crowley nudged the mechanisms into perfect alignment, smoothing their engagement. He let sparks of inspiration scorch away any stray diversions, a protective white light against any mundane interruption of the rector’s ideas.

“And then,” Michell rubbed out his initial star. He drew over it the boundary of another, far more massive, his arm whirling out beyond the blackboard and down around to his feet, back up and arcing across the board. “Then the reason we may not _see_ our South Wing, our unseen star, is because not only is it of such a mass as to attract its pair—its North—into orbit by virtue of gravity—”

He drew a modest circle some distance from the arc, and then held the chalk to the imagined centre of the massive star, his eyes briefly closed, an expression of wonderment on his face.

Crowley rolled his shoulders, indulgent, as Insight engulfed the room. Colours collapsing gratefully into a prism, Michell staring at the white beam of the chalk in his hand and laughing.

“Oh, yes! Mr Crowley—the light! It can’t escape, for there must be some limit to even light’s swift velocity, and a star of enough mass will simply not allow light to escape! Do you see? The paired star is far enough removed from danger that its own light will travel to us, albeit likely altered in nature by its companion, but we shall not ever observe the light emanating from this dark star, it is too massive...can this be right, do you think?” 

Michell sat down heavily, cheeks flushed, the narrative of his revelation already turning into mathematics in his quicksilver mind. Later, out in the courtyard to watch an escalating row amongst the bricklayers, Crowley found the elation of discovery fit warmly alongside any bounty born from anger. Michell’s cleverness allowed an indulgence in metaphor: the bright furnace and the dark well of gravity were both stars, no matter the observer. Newton’s particle or Hooke’s wave—both were light. The far-flung universe, the stonemason’s tools, the large glass of wine that Crowley was on his way to procure—all marvellously complex, but elementally, all alike.

* * *

Finally, an invitation from the angel:

 _My dear_ , the message began, _do come to my little demonstration_. 

The Leicester Square house of Doctor Hunter, famous surgeon and infamous arsehole, stank of ambition, pain, and camphor. An astringent bouquet, with a sillage that proclaimed discovery to be above all other human concerns, meta- or -physical. Being there, still fizzing from the encounter with Michell, made him feel disconcertingly (excitingly) like one of Mr Galvani’s frogs. 

The corridors were busy, the reason clear once the breathless murmurs about the evening’s demonstration circulated to his attention. Apparently it was to be a live (for the moment) patient, brought in sudden emergency, and not a mere cadaver (if the poor bastard was lucky). Crowley went to the double-storeyed surgical theatre, where he found a packed room of black-suited vultures perched to watch the carrion on the high table.

The patient, doped to laxity, was strapped down with leather buckles. A coterie of assistants stood ready with further assurance that limbs would be pinned in place. A quick scan of the packed front rows, and he spotted the Judge: clearly an honoured guest.

The angel paced the platform. No, that wasn’t right; Crowley should rightly name him as Lord Fell, gentleman surgeon, anatomist, and clear master of this room. His shirtsleeves were fastened up to bare the dove and laurel branches below the elbow. Did the humans present see those? The lamps were so plentiful that Aziraphale stood pooled in light; his brilliance defied even tinted spectacles. There was a mischievous smile on his face that Crowley knew of old. He’d always loved a performance. 

But that was not to diminish what he was in that moment. Aziraphale gleamed, and all of it was—astonishing, yet no less true— _mundane_ power. He rested one hand, calm and unflinching, against the trembling shoulder of the man face-down on the table. Underneath the performer was the professional.

That fizz through Crowley’s body, blending with the scent of blood and the cliff’s-edge of mortality, had him craning forward as eagerly as everyone else.

“Friends and fellow scholars of the human form, I thank you most humbly for your attention. We shall proceed with haste. This evening I present to you the case of Mr Selly, a tradesman who has had a most unfortunate accident. As you will see, he has come afoul of his own materials.” Lord Fell’s fingers stroked along the man’s shoulder. “The perforation of the _subscapularis_ is complete, with iron shrapnel to an estimated depth of—”

The unfortunate Mr Selly gave out a cry, causing a ripple of sympathetic laughter from the crowd.

“Indeed,” agreed Lord Fell, wry.

As he continued to list the particulars of the case, Crowley felt the miracle, the first that he’d sensed. It was balm, nothing more; the angel soothing effect but never interfering with its cause . Mercy without mercy, Crowley had always called it—sometimes in anger, sometimes in hopelessness, most often in wistful acceptance of Aziraphale’s nature. Pain relief, but if the man were to live, it would be through a surgeon’s skill and nothing more.

Mercy without mercy. _She_ was like that, too. 

And then the angel lifted his blade. Slender, and sharp as you like, with a leading edge so fine it tapered to near invisibility. 

Crowley stared, hungry. From the front of the room, Aziraphale looked out over the crowd and met his eyes.

“First,” Aziraphale said, to him, “to expose that which is hidden.”

The edge of the scalpel was placed with meticulous care down between the man’s shoulders, not yet pressing. Within their secret space, Crowley’s wings shivered. 

The scalpel’s blade darted. A moment before reaction, before a sigh from forty throats, a wail, and crimson welling. Flesh parted at his urging touch.

The angel set down the blade and took up the forceps. “Next, I will draw out that which is wrong.” His voice was lowered, his concentration now total. His blunt, capable hands were covered in blood. 

“Fuck,” Crowley breathed, and bolted from the room. 

Well, that was a thing. Outside, in the dubiously fresh London air, he attempted to find some shred of dignity. Seriously, though. _My little demonstration_. Satan’s sake.

A lad came to find him an hour or so later as he browsed Hunter’s medical curiosities and pretended that he was capable of contemplating anything else than what he’d just witnessed.

“Lord Fell begs your indulgence—”

A dismissive snort.

“—and says that while he is finished in surgery he’ll be in the Library for some while longer on your business. He said that you would understand. Will you wait?”

He sighed. “Apparently, always. Tell me, the patient. Will he live?”

The lad’s face lit. “Yes, sir. Lord Fell believes he will.”

He was glad.

And gladder still that Aziraphale was finally making good on his obligation to corrupt the Judge.

A snap for the carriage.

“Selly will live, the Judge is damned.” Aziraphale slid in place, settling across the corner to turn to Crowley. His voice slurred at the edges. “How’d you like that?”

Seven years of modern legal training and nearly six thousand years of debate and persuasion were still not enough experience to frame a useful response.

“Ngk.”

“To Vauxhall, yes?” Aziraphale waved them underway.

Crowley raised a brow but let the order stand. The angel had changed to fresh clothing, and smelled of strong soap and sweet smoke.

“Sooo,” he started, trying to figure out if there were an upper hand to be gained or if he should give it all up for a lost cause.

“You are,” Aziraphale drew a lazy fingertip through the air, “girdled about with such _imaginings_.” He smiled—an appreciative, expansive smile—and plucked at the unseen between them, space opening, pulling thoughts into matter. “I want to know these adventures you’ve been on,” the angel said absently, examining shining ideas as he turned them over between his fingers. “I always adore your stories.”

He looked up, and Crowley, who had been following the movement of Aziraphale’s hands (no longer surgery-steady; wrapped in filaments he’d pulled out of the aether) caught an expression too complex to parse in the moment, too saturated with narcotics to invite a reply. The angel reached into his pocket and withdrew a carved jade pipe, which he turned over several times in his hands, before passing to Crowley. It was a beautiful, dangerous thing. 

Please take it, he heard without hearing. Please do not give it back. 

“Champagne, or the mysteries of the universe?” he said lightly, putting away the pipe in the material safety of his coat. 

“Champagne first always, my dear,” Aziraphale murmured the lie and leaned nearer. Crowley reached into his palm, untangling the lulled jumble of notional strands, and pitched them through the dark of the carriage.

A little Will—inasmuch as the evening had left him with any remaining—and the threads took shape. Dawn-long shadows over the curving hillside; the vines in rows, their leaves picked gold by the sunrise; dewy grapes, fattening nicely; and the mineral sluice of the newly-freed wellspring, the osmosis of roots and the grateful unfolding of leaves to meet the sun.

Aziraphale made a soft noise of pleasure beside him, a rumble that felt like the aquifer breaking all over again. The scene fell away.

“And the rest—”

Up there are binary stars, their gravitational forces so massive that not even light can escape, Crowley thought. 

“Later,” he said.

Slouching back against the squabs, he took off his spectacles, shoving them roughly into his coat with the pipe. They fell into silence, the dim interior of the post chaise and its rhythmic rocking lulling them.

“I liked it tonight,” he said, not quite looking at the angel. “What you did.”

There in the dark, Aziraphale’s hand came to rest, warm, on Crowley’s thigh.

He looked, then. Couldn’t help himself. Down, first: those hands were clean now, the nails scrubbed and pristine. And, up: the angel’s face a pale moon; the whites of his eyes luminous; pupils constricted so unnaturally tight that Crowley felt for a moment as though they were mirrored with his own.

He looked away. Aziraphale shifted, his fingertips spreading, grasping, across Crowley’s breeches, before he removed his hand. Pressed so close, bumped together, he could feel the angel’s chest moving opiate slow. Crowley found himself trying to match, but his rabbiting heart beat too quickly to comply.

There were crowds and fireworks at Vauxhall. Brash women, loud men. Vice. And there he was, strolling with an angel whose breath was even and deep, his body languorous and his mood pliant.

A fire balloon drifted across the tree-tops, untethered. He held up a hand, bid it hover in place. There had been a meteor in August, thundering out of the heavens over Scotland and rupturing the eastern skies to break up over the Continent. Crowley had stood watching the show on the road back from Yorkshire. He recounted it: the animals panicky at the great flash of light, his disappointment at the rapt wonder of the two riders, their lack of fear.

“Not even a genuflection to ward off misfortune.” 

“The Age of Reason,” Aziraphale mused, flicking his fingers and sending a breeze to the balloon, suffocating its fire and watching it spin safely to the ground.

They stopped in the shadow of a quiet gazebo, the sounds of revellerie muted there. Aziraphale frowned at the unlit strings of tattered paper lanterns, bleached insipid by the long summer. He reached up to the nearest. Colours deepened, lights rekindled, and the gazebo was saturated with a dozen jewelled hues.

Crowley watched, mesmerized, as Aziraphale stepped into the centre, and turned slowly in the reflected light, holding the pale blue silk of his coat to catch the beams. Sapphire and garnet and emerald, in orbit. The lace of his sleeves made filigree cutwork.

Like an opium lamp. 

“Did you know,” Crowley asked abruptly, “that you have blood in your hair?” 

He stepped close. There, the faintest streak of it, brushed by careless fingertips. He lifted his hand to be the careful one, to ease the rust flakes away.

Aziraphale smiled at him, heavy-lidded and dreamy. He squeezed his shoulder, murmuring pleased discovery as fabric stretched across the flesh and bone beneath. Crowley gasped.

“And you,” the angel said, “feel exquisite.” 

If Crowley spoke, it would be of adoration.

So he used his mouth to show it, instead.

His lips brushed his cheek, a barely-there kiss, until the angel tilted greedily toward the sensation. 

More _there_ than barely, this time. The lights slanting gold warmth across the plane of Aziraphale’s jaw, and he let his mouth follow that line, drifting up along skin that tasted of a thousand miraculous things.

Aziraphale gave the softest of sighs, barely audible, a huff of air breathed onto Crowley’s skin. Nothing but the minor displacement of gases in the physical world, a body breathing into another, but the effect was to liquefy him in some core property, a shift in state from solid to _needing_.

The angel’s hands on his shoulders moved, clenched, one pushing up to wrap in the length of his hair, the other ignoring the material properties of wool and cambric to slide a hot palm straight over Crowley’s heart.

“I cut that man open.” Aziraphale pulled him to his gaze; Crowley heaved in a breath, blinking at the too-vivid light in the angel’s eyes, the way the lingering bliss of the poppy smoothed any lines from his face, “I wanted to see, to see inside him. There’s so _much_.”

The hand in Crowley’s hair flexed, then pulled. The ribbon gave way, his hair spilling free. 

“And you, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, eyes glazed, hands moving to trail over his skin, trace fingertips down his spine, “so much.”

As he shuddered, Crowley grasped up to find Aziraphale’s body, to feel his solidity. The best thing in the whole of Creation was right in his field of view, buzzed and flying high on the audacity of knowledge, his plush mouth half-open to lick his lips—

The angel hummed, pulled him flush. Fingernails now, searing lines of intent over vertebrae. “Would you—what would I find?” Aziraphale’s question was a sloppy secret, spoken absently into his temple, and too late, Crowley understood and _keened_.

Heedless, the angel breached the tucked-away space between Crowley’s shoulder blades, his Will the sharpest of knives through to another plane, the opium robbing him of all subtlety. Crowley stuttered, his body crawling with need, his Being sliced open and stuffed full of an angel’s rapturous, voracious grasp. 

“So soft,” whispered Aziraphale, and somewhere in the universe he felt gentle, demanding fingers stroke through plumage.

“Oh. Oh _God_. Aziraphale. A _zss_ iraphale.” His knees gave way. The angel had him. He held him, lowered them both to the ground. A hand ran along the length of his humerus bone to caress his alula. He shuddered in Aziraphale’s arms.

“Did you see him, Crowley? Did you? Death? He was in the room, I think, watching like you. And then he was gone; I sent him away with my knife and my thread. It felt so good, Crowley, to _win_. Mmm. You feel very good. Kiss me again, will you? Your meteor. Tell me, tell me—did it Fall as fast as you?”

Fuck fuck fuck. In the other space, his feathers shivered continuously under that gentle, demanding hand. In Vauxhall Gardens, he wound his arm around the angel’s neck to hook him down.

His lips parted under the angel’s open mouth, breath passing between them for an elastic moment before the tip of Aziraphale’s tongue grazed his own. The wet heat had them both groaning, deepening the kiss. His head spun urgently as he nipped at Aziraphale, licked into him for the very first time. The taste— _the taste_ — 

“It’s alright, my dearest,” Aziraphale murmured. They were pressed so close now, clenched together, Crowley’s fingers tugging the curls at the angel’s nape and the angel’s thumb covetous at his coverts.

“They’ve no real power over us, neither side. How can they, without Her command? We do what they want when they ask, and the rest is _ours_. We can be how we want. Have what we want.” 

Kiss-drunk, body thrumming in two worlds, Crowley blinked up at the darkened sky, at another fire lantern drifting past. The flame at its base twinkled, almost like a star.

Then Aziraphale bent to him again, greedy and glorious and _wanting him_ and _having him_ , and the angel’s light occluded everything, everything else.

 **_  
_ ** **_End of part two_ **

### Authors Notes

**Cliquot  
**One of the largest [champagne houses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veuve_Clicquot) in the world, founded in 1772, and very fortunate to have had a good harvest in a year when an angel was concerned that rosé champagne might not otherwise be invented.

 **Duchess of Beaufort  
**As a horticulturalist, [reportedly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Somerset,_Duchess_of_Beaufort_\(1630%E2%80%931715\)) an exacting employer.

 **Galvani’s frogs  
**[Frog's legs for science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_galvanoscope).

 **Gray’s Inn  
**One of the four Inns of Court, where barristers have had their Continuing Professional Development since the fourteenth century. Neither of us are lawyers but those we know agree that fancy dinners and networking events (the sort where you are chivvied along to talk to three people you didn’t know before! etc) are part of the deal. Not much has changed since Crowley was there then. Here’s the [ Great Hall](https://www.graysinn.org.uk/history/the-hall).

 **Great Meteor of 1783  
**Curiously, this was the main inducement for choosing this particular year to tell these late summertime happenings for Aziraphale and Crowley, but the [ meteor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1783_Great_Meteor) then ended up playing only a tiny part in the story. What a happening decade it was.

 **Grenville and the Mainz Psalterium  
**Thomas Grenville was your typical posh military politician type of the latter 18th century, but he was also an avid book collector. His collection—which he lent out widely—was one of the large bequeathments that formed the basis of the British Library. The Mainz Psalter was the second title to be printed on movable type after the Gutenberg Bible, and even in the eighteenth century was probably a collector’s fever dream, thus Aziraphale’s tizzy. Grenville’s copy (he got one eventually from a Count Weissenberg) is G.12216 at the British Library, and it is occasionally on display in the Ritblatt Gallery. These bibliographic details on manuscript provenance constitute possibly the highest research effort to story detail ratio in this whole fic and will undoubtedly cause some awkward moment in the future where someone asks Blythe, “How is it you know about the pencil marginalia in a BL catalog from the 1930s?”  
  
Scans of the Psalter in the Royal Collection can be seen [here](https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/3/collection/1071478/the-mainz-psalter).

 **John Hunter**  
Famous eighteenth-century surgeon and anatomist. The more she [read](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279697470_Dissection_and_display_in_eighteenth-century_london), the more Circe took against him, but he was definitely the one for Aziraphale to apprentice under. Hunter’s [premises](https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/john-hunter-residence) at 28 Leicester Square were home to a surgical demonstration theatre and a collection of medical curiosities. 

**John Michell’s proposition on black holes and escape velocity  
**One of the delights of writing this story is the discovery of little-known historical figures. John Michell seems to have been one of those eighteenth-century polymathic geniuses who, for whatever reason, was well-respected in his day, corresponded and visited with the great minds, but because he was uncelebrated by Cambridge or society, he fell into obscurity. The ideas about inferring the mass of stars by considering the gravitational pull that would prevent light from escaping are presented in: 

> Michell, J. 1784. On the means of discovering the distance, magnitude, &c. of the fixed stars, in consequence of the diminution of the velocity of their light, in case such a diminution should be found to take place in any of them, and such other data should be procured from observations, as would be farther necessary for that purpose. _[Phil. Trans. R. Soc](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstl.1784.0008). _v74, pp35-57. 

Blythe bemoans the fact that you can no longer have such long titles for scientific articles.

 **London in the mid-1700s  
**Follow the progress of Crowley's sports-model carriage [here](https://www.locatinglondon.org/index.html). 

**Ranelagh & Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens  
**Masquerades, Bowling greens, skittle grounds, fireworks, tea and cake and cheese, music halls, Chinese Pavilions. [Ranelagh](https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/a-view-of-the-canal-chinese-building-rotundo-etc-in-ranelagh-gardens) was historically agreed to be the [naff](https://janeaustenslondon.com/2016/05/08/so-what-was-wrong-with-ranelagh/) establishment cousin to Vauxhall, where the real parties were happening.

 **Worshipful Society of Apothecaries  
**Crowley was unimpressed by Aziraphale’s [membership](https://www.apothecaries.org/who-we-are/) until he realised that it could get him entry into Chelsea Physic Garden. Their crest was Apollo with a halo overcoming a wyvern, which is all sorts of hilarious.

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 11

[Suite No. 2 for Jazz Orchestra VII. Waltz (Arr. for Piano Quintet)](https://open.spotify.com/track/22UENED4ci1i9gXzShMBLL?si=LtEyPqCHT-Cni8xVr4al1A)  
Dmitri Shostakovich  
Philharmonic Five

[All Mine](https://open.spotify.com/track/785Qya5mtMUwBQtuypVqrx?si=rsBdiSdiTd6GQUG_VIF5hA)  
Portishead  
  


#### Perfume

[Opium](https://scentertainer.net/en/yves-saint-laurent-opium-review/), by YSL  
The Angel, shirtsleeves rolled, scalpel in hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a brief description of medical surgery - incisions, but no gore. If that's not for you you could skip the paragraph where Crowley arrives at Doctor Hunter's house for the demonstration, and pick up where he flees the operating theatre.
> 
> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/619302698965172224/planning-permission). In which the pleasures of writing about alternate careers are explored, and Blythe gushes about scientific discoveries as narrative devices.


	12. Into the West Country, January

_**Part III** _

The Bentley wouldn’t rev past fifty. 

Aziraphale glanced over at the dark huddle sleeping beside him, watching his chest rise and fall. Practised and even breathing, an embodied habit to allay the suspicions of humans. (“And it feels good. Oxygen’s nice.”)

He tapped his foot on the accelerator again, checking, but as Crowley had drifted off the car had slowed down too. Even deep in slumber and curled up in the passenger seat, some part of the demon’s mind steered and combusted amongst the mechanics.

“You can drive,” Crowley had grinned at him earlier, stroking a hand possessively along the roof of the car, “ _or_ you can DJ.”

Rude comments on his driving were more tolerable than on his taste in music so he’d waved Crowley off to the passenger door and settled back behind the wheel. It was now afternoon. The mist clung on in the Cotswolds, no London heat to chase it away. 

It was pleasant to be back on the road, refreshed by the break and recalibrated after a fortnight amongst the familiar. In one of the jumbledays that spanned the New Year, he’d leaned over Crowley’s shoulder to watch him play a game on his pocket telephone, guiding the trajectory of falling bricks into place as they rained down faster and faster.

“Put that one there,” he’d gestured helpfully.

“—ah, shut up, angel—no no no, get away—” 

Frantic jabbing at the screen, and a disgusted look up at him. 

In December, memories had felt like those bricks, slotting into gaps as he turned them around to find their place. A few fell untidily, but the holiday let him pause their descent. Now, even the worst of those recollections had their sharp edges chiseled off to service the fit, hammered away with the business end of the whisky decanter and the blunt reason of the demon beside him.

Crowley turned, stirred, and fell quiet.

Outside the Bentley, the winter fields flew past. Frost limned everything, including the car, but the interior was a cosy haven. With the road practically empty, Aziraphale’s attention was tempted elsewhere. Crowley’s lashes were dark red against closed lids, fluttering lightly. He’d thrown his coat across the backseat when making himself comfortable, and now his green shirt—a Christmas gift from the market in Scarborough—rode up from his jeans. 

An enticing strip of lightly-freckled skin was exposed. Giving in immediately to impulse, he leaned across to brush his fingers there, light as thistledown. Scales tessellated from freckles, before fading from one patch of bared skin to ripple across another. 

Crowley was cool and smooth and breathtaking underneath his touch. He dreamed in snatches of colour and movement:

High above the earth, ah, the long shadows across the green fields, the gusting whoosh of noise and heat above—a hot-air balloon, _oh_ how Crowley loved them. Aziraphale had a clear memory of Crowley’s face, centuries ago and incandescently beautiful: “They’re flying, angel. Flying!”

Under his fingertips, the scales clustered and spread, attracted by his body heat. Their swirling pattern made him think of his own pilgrim marks, and how actively they’d moved in and out of this plane of late. Attracted by his returning memories, he thought—those building blocks of who he was and how he thought to be. Over the holidays another had appeared at the base of his index finger. Pricked with a sharpened bone: three lines, a circle. So very, very old that he could no longer recall their purpose nor provenance, only that they were part of him.

Crowley sighed in his sleep. His thoughts were warmer, now, more disjointed. The sense-pleasure of being pressed firmly against another body; repetitive, soothing movement—a carriage?

_Yes?_ Aziraphale thought at him, and the dreaming shifted, with—

A low buzz distracted his rapt contemplation. A light blinked on the dashboard. He didn’t recall a light there before, but there it was, red and warning.

“Alright, dearheart,” he murmured. 

He eased his hand back to the wheel, but not before indulging in one last little pet of the snoozing demon. 

Laughing, stumbling, slithering across the ice-spackled field and over the stile.

A blazing bonfire lit the orchard and the growing crowd. Figures moved back and forth to the central fire, lighting torches and wandering out to the apple trees, shouting for them to wake from slumber, banging pots and drums to chase away bad spirits. 

Ahead of him, Crowley strode down the path, summoning twigs and seedheads from the wintering borders of the walled garden. His coat, a tailored and urbane thing when he’d slung it on in London, now mantled him full length, layered and villainous in its sweep across the ground.

“This is all a bit _too_ tame,” Crowley had grumbled as they’d tucked into pork belly and toffee pudding at dinner. He watched some glossy-haired young people ladle up the cider into buckets and hand around photocopies of wassailing songs for the festivities, before scoffing, “Needs some legit pagan horror.”

(Though the rarebit hadn’t been too tame for the demon, who fell on the combination of cheese and triple mustard like a peasant.)

“Not tempted to dress up?” Crowley spun around, the mass of stems and foliage now woven into a spiky crown, a charcoaled stripe replacing his dark glasses, and a definite demonic gleam in his eyes.

“Do I need to?”

A pause. Aziraphale let Crowley consider him, while the fire whooshed sparks and the wassailers whooped with glee, while the crowd’s driving desire for new life and plenty began to brim over inside him. Elemental.

“Oh—ooh, no, no, you’re probably a bit much for this lot as you are, angel.” Crowley blinked. “‘Specially with that pom-pom. It’s proper eldritch.”

“Away,” he smiled, batting a hand off his hat.

The scrumpy of the evening most definitely had that touch of the eldritch. Aziraphale found himself a prime position triangulated by the mulling cauldron and the bonfire: ideal for inhaling spiced apple fumes and watching Crowley chase after small humans. The coat billowed behind, fingers outstretched like claws, and the little ones shrieked and scattered in delighted terror.

He took a ladleful more of cider from a man in a felt hat topped with apples and leaves. Had a lengthy conversation with him about last year’s flooding across the Levels. Thus absorbed, he didn’t notice Crowley’s return until he found himself budged up along his bench and a long arm snaked around to steal his cup.

Crowley leaned to his ear, his breath hot. “I remember when all of this was a lowland sea, and the Tor an island.”

Aziraphale nudged the twiggy crown safely off onto Crowley’s lap. “Avalon.”

“Ynys Afallach,” Crowley corrected. He hadn’t moved away and his mouth tickled. “You picked the right place for a good wassail, angel. All the apples we could want here.”

Aziraphale rescued the teetering cup of cider from Crowley’s hand and set it aside. “I like orchards,” he said. “And applewood is so lovely. Isn’t the fire sweet-scented?”

“You’d think a simple thing like a bonfire would get old when you’ve lived long enough to see the first flame,” Crowley teased. 

Angels were fire and air manifested in light. Aziraphale would never tire of seeing how humans found their own way to God’s divinity.

He said as much, and Crowley nudged in closer, his face tilted in between Aziraphale’s throat and scarf. 

“Sss’warm.” His voice was muffled; sibilant and unrepentant. 

“Glad to know I’m useful for something.”

“Not moving.”

“Crowley?”

“Mmm?”

“Do you—do you want to come with me tomorrow?”

“Oof.” Crowley shivered in sudden reaction. “Ugh, angel, stop with the temptations when you’re half-soused on fruit and fertility; half of Somerset felt that one. You want everyone here to take you up on the invitation?”

Aziraphale lifted a hand to rest apologetically along the curve of Crowley’s head, where the cap of soft stubble burnished in the firelight. He felt Crowley’s slow blink against his skin.

“You don’t need me to come with you, angel.”

“No...I’ll miss you, is all.”

“Shan’t. You’re pilgrimaging.”

“The two are not mutually exclusive,” countered Aziraphale. He ran his thumb down below Crowley’s ear, near his sigil, before he drew his hand away. “Now I know you’re busy, but I’ve quite enjoyed our messages with the pocket telephone. You’ll keep those up?”

Crowley pulled away to give him a mussed but solemn look. “I’m never too busy to laugh at your selfies. Mostly deskbound at this time of year anyhow. Probably use your workroom.”

“Oh?” He aimed for casual. “Your, what did you say your project was again?”

It was so curious that Crowley was holding this so close to the chest. 

Crowley reached to rearrange Aziraphale’s scarf. “I didn’t.” His gold eyes were still serious as he hesitated. “But I will. Soon. Not now. Too early, I think.”

He gathered his thoughts. Crowley could be such a skittish creature and he did not wish to say the wrong thing. With careful movements he picked up the crown and set it back in place. He smoothed down stray hairs. “May I help?”

Crowley’s hesitation was a fraction longer then he shook his head. “Not yet.”

He could accept that, so he nodded, withdrawing his hand. “Soon, then.”

Nothing further was said on the topic, as a figure in a swirling ruby-red cloak landed with a laugh on the ground in front of them. Less dignified and more ciderfied by this point in the evening, the Wassail Queen straightened her headdress of greenery, peered at Crowley’s face in studied examination, and fished her pocket telephone out of her dress.

She grinned. “Hallo, you’re the one who gave my little boy the fright of his life!”

“Was he the idiot about to break a leg climbing a tree or the monster setting fire to the hay bales?”

“Breaking a leg. But now he knows the devil will eat him if he tries it again. Nice job, ta. Can I have a selfie? Love your costume, it’s well lush.”

Aziraphale watched the exchange with rising amusement, and let Crowley extract himself. A chance to show off his newly-acquired camera skills, and feel the warmth of her enjoyment alongside that of the bonfire when she examined the pictures. Sparks and torches lit the background; the light turned her skin into cream and Crowley’s into gold; and the contrast of black and red and green was striking. 

“Holy shit, we look so glam, that’s going straight on Insta.”

“Hashtag _Waes hael_ ,” Crowley proclaimed, and drained his cider. 

Shouts in the orchard, and she left them in a flurry of trailing ivy. 

“Come on, I reckon they’re nearly drunk enough to start shooting at the trees and throwing toast into the branches,” Crowley said. “Let’s go watch.”

“My dear, go _watch?_ You, who claim to know me so well.” He affected disbelief, hands on hips and brows raised. “I’ll be throwing toast myself, thank you very much, and you will too if you know what’s good for you.” He paused, considering. “But perhaps we’ll top up the cider mugs first.”

Early in the chilly morning, after a full English for him and alarming amounts of coffee for Crowley, the Bentley dropped him off at a station for the stopping train through to Taunton. 

“Surprised you haven’t summoned the Torbay Express,” Crowley teased, pulling the leather carryon from the car.

“She’s spoiled me, it’s true.” Aziraphale stroked the Bentley’s bonnet and felt her rumbling purr. “You’ll lend her to me again?”

“Can lend her now if you’re having second thoughts about roughing it.”

“No,” Aziraphale said. “This feels right.”

There was a memory to be collected. He could feel the edges of it—by the seaside, in light so distinctive that there could be no mistaking his destination even without the map’s confirmation. It was an odd one, Aziraphale had thought when he’d traced over it at the shop. Not hard like Lindisfarne had been, or eye-catching like Birmingham. This memory had felt, well, gritty and disappointing. Very odd indeed. 

“Thought I’d overnight in Exeter first, then continue on.”

“More cathedrals, booooring. Guess this is it. Get into trouble, angel, and have fun, yeah?”

Crowley’s hands were jammed in his coat pockets. Aziraphale wished for nothing so much as to take one of them, but he had a train to catch.  
  


* * *

**  
St Ives, 1951**

The train disgorged a whoomph of steam as it hugged the curve of the hill to pull into the station. From his comfortable position on the hotel terrace, Aziraphale watched the tourists pour out. Sand-buckets and sunhats; so eager to sample the pleasures of the beaches and the town. Who could blame them? Yet the poor souls would have the pressure of a return journey looming from the moment they laid down their towels, while he had only a jaunt along the strand.

He poured more hot water into the teapot, then turned his attention to the jolly postcard. He’d shoved it into his coat days before and simply kept forgetting to write.

> _Crowley,_

Disappointingly, he’d not seen much of Crowley since the war; not seen much of the demon, full stop, in recent times. Always had a project, that one, and always in perpetual motion. He’d even been off for half the nineteenth century, no explanation, and hadn’t even bothered to write. How lucky Aziraphale was to have made such friends here. It was such a close-knit community.

> _I’ve been included in one of the new Society’s exhibitions, my first. A sea study; a classic theme, but the others have told me it has “real depth”. I myself couldn’t possibly say. I shall send you a catalogue. I’ve a more ambitious work underway now, started some years ago now, when the Society was much more conventional. It is—_

(Here he scrubbed out his attempts at description, thinking they sounded puerile in the English language, and especially so to someone who’d spent an awful lot of time in Renaissance Florence.)

> _I’m curious: what would_ you _make of the colours in the surf and the sands?_

Aziraphale tapped a thoughtful finger against the card before tucking it back into his pocket. It would find its way to Mayfair when he remembered.

The afternoon sun was bright against the lichen-covered slate roofs. Aziraphale whistled as he made his way down from Fore Street, maneuvering his windbreak and deckchair under his arm. The quay bustled with holiday-makers, the smells of food and lotion mingling with the brinier aroma of the sea. The ice cream seller stood cool in his white jacket while children flocked as thick as gulls, all waiting for the tower of cones to topple. Easels were dotted along the sand; sketchbooks balanced on bared knees. Usually Aziraphale would be one of these supplicants to the horizon, pencil between his teeth and thanks in his heart for the glorious light, but today he fancied something a little more bracing _._

When he emerged from the ocean, towelling his hair after a dip, he was surprised to be approached yet again by a fellow artist. It was the third time in as many days, and when he mentioned it to the Penwith crew—“life modelling, they said”—the plain-speaking artists found it hilarious:

“It’s because you’ve got an enormous todger, Ezra. And if you’re going to model for anyone, you’ll do it for one of us. At least Barbara works in materials that can properly appreciate your magnificence.”

“Oh, bother.”

Two years later, and Aziraphale humphed in annoyance as the little carriages made their way around the curve of the cliff, steaming back to the St Erth mainline and taking with it his new box of oils. He’d been too distracted by the late running of the train and the anticipatory pleasure of seeing friends setting up their new exhibition.

No real mind. The paints would make a lovely find for someone, or the railway station attendant at Lost Luggage might be able to take them home at Christmas.

“You’ll just have to branch out into pastels this year,” Wilhelmina said later, as he chopped a bunch of parsley for their lunch and related his silly mishap. “Or collage.”

She was spattered with all shades of white and blue, her canvases creaking and crackling with the majesty of glaciers. She had returned from Switzerland with more lines of sight on the ice fields of the Alps than a human should rightly possess, and set about transferring them to canvas, perspective be damned. 

Willie painted; he chopped; they talked. Ben and Barbara were on the rocks. Isobel had gone off on the moors and had the coastguard called out on her. Peter had offered to look for her by taking his glider up. Herbert was very boringly evangelical about existentialism. 

Aziraphale turned his attention to the fish he was gutting for bouillabaisse, slicing deep into the flesh, expertly turning the blade of his pocket knife along the top of the laddered skeleton. Art needed lunch, that much was always clear, and the more brilliant the artists the less chance they remembered to feed themselves. 

On an easel, his own sketch was half-finished: a crab lurking in a rock pool. The crab in question now sat dismembered on the chopping board, punished for scuttling beyond the patience of the artist. Quick work to scoop the flesh into the simmering broth alongside the fish.

“Lunch in a bit,” he said, glugging in wine and an equal measure of olive oil. (From the chemist! Italians would weep.)

Willie came to sniff interestedly at the pot before sniffing critically at his sketch.

“‘S technically accomplished, you know.” She was candid—it was true, and it was not meant to spare his feelings or to damn with faint praise. Just a blunt observation.

“I’d hoped after all these years”—and there was the rub of it, she had no idea the number of years—“to have found something more than technical accomplishment.”

He glanced over to her own canvas, the looming overhang of the glacier rendered abstract and geometric, the simple white oval that formed the centre of the piece suggesting a giant boulder of ice. Pencilled angles spoke of refraction and shards. Forbidding nature was rendered down into two dimensions, inviting a reconstruction in the mind of the observer.

“What would you do with my crab then?” he said, trying only to sound curious. She was so generous to let him observe; he didn’t expect her to teach.

She picked up the carapace off the chopping board and examined it, holding it up to the light. A new palette: orange and purple and black. Paint stroked in thick slabs around his sketch, obscuring the details. Under her brush, the crab became a child’s outline, then reappeared, dry bristles scraping depth into the oils, creating the rugged texture of shell. Half of the animal shrouded in purple shadow, form lost to abstraction but somehow better able to convey the basics of a crustacean than his finely-rendered sketch had been. 

Peter’s show was a stunning success. Aziraphale quietly lamented that, like nearly all of the group, Lanyon had shifted almost completely to abstraction; there had been canvases a few years before that had captured the light on the Cornish countryside so absolutely, so remarkably, that Aziraphale hadn’t been able to drag himself away. The new paintings were not as luminous, but they stopped Aziraphale in his tracks nonetheless.

“I suppose it’s everything I see and remember about Porthleven when I close my eyes,” Peter said. “Here’s the fishing boats and the line I was tangled in as a boy. There’s the hill I walked to be married.”

Peter had captured layers of time, and to Aziraphale it felt audacious. Frustrating. He had been so careful to appear conventional during these summers, to blend in and fence off his extraordinary nature while making human art, and yet—sometimes when he was on the beach the Spanish Armada appeared off the coast. When he walked along the coast, ruins became manors and fields became forests. And yet he never let himself paint what he knew was true.

He tried his hand at the pottery wheel but found it to be like a dreary day job he’d once had, churning out amphorae. At Willie’s suggestion he tried collage, and the tyranny of choice overwhelmed him. Pastels were finicky; watercolours were exhausting; pen and ink was too much like manuscript illumination (been there, done that, didn’t miss the arsenic). He dabbled with monumental sculpture, because there was nothing so satisfying as hacking away at a bit of marble or granite, but most of those experiments ended up as objects of mystery out on the moors. 

He returned to oil painting. For some years, _ArtReview_ had featured gigantic canvases, gallery shows with only six works because each was the size of a wall. Something in that scope stirred deep feeling in Aziraphale, the wonder of looking out on an endless desert. The grit of sand swirling past rock. The savage beauty of the sun high overhead, a shimmering heat mirage in the distance. When he stood in front of his work in progress, Aziraphale could feel the baking heat, had the vivid sense memory of that sand on his skin and behind his teeth. Eons passing, waters rising and receding, life emerging as the grandeur of Creation. 

And so he thought to paint that desert vista, each stroke to stand for a year. 

“The earth is _how_ old?” Peter laughed, incredulous.

One of the others threw a _National Geographic_ magazine across the studio. “Three billion years at least! They can measure the neutrons in meteorites. Or something.” 

“Ezra,” frowned Barbara, “you’ll never finish.”

A general chorus of agreement, some approving, some grumbling about the waste of premium oils.

“It’s mad,” Willie said, “brilliant, but you’re bonkers!”

From scribbling some numbers, Peter looked up. “You’ll be an old man if you did one a second non-stop—ahh.” He nodded, smiled, looked around at the circle of artists. “That’s the point though, isn’t it? Futility? In the face of mortality?” 

Peter slapped him on the back and wandered off for a cup of tea.

Futility was _not_ the point.

Aziraphale stopped in at the Leach pottery after a long traipse up and down the coast. He had not picked up a brush since the Society meeting, and as the sea broke fierce at the bottom of the cliffs it felt viciously like his own churning thoughts.

He was an angel. He wasn’t meant to churn. 

At the pottery, he settled gratefully in a quiet corner of the studio set aside for occasional visitors. He wired off and weighed a small lump of porcelain, wedging it with care. Rolled out the clay as fine as could be, layering like pastry, then extracted shapes as if they were biscuits. With his fingernails he traced lines and forms into the top layer, no conscious thought as to their meaning. The afternoon flew by, and he walked back to town more settled. 

The pieces exploded in the kiln, of course. All those layers, pockets of air trapped by glaze and superheated. But by some miracle—not his own—two survived the second firing, one the deep black and red of the pottery’s famous glaze, the other a tactile matte white. Into the indented marks he pressed gold, smoothing it flush with the surface. 

“This is exquisite,” Willie said, kissing him on the cheek and fastening the white brooch on her coat as she waited with him for the train. He was cutting his summer short: the weather had turned, and he feared the bookshop was in disarray. 

She ran a thumb over the marks, the gold glistening brightly in the sunset. He was so touched that she admired it, but it had been nothing—a mindless afternoon of keeping his hands busy. No deep symbolism, he explained.

“Well, I like the dots very much. Ezra—this might be your best work.”

On the train, he took out the other piece from his pocket and rubbed the glaze, glossy and reflective. In his palm, it absorbed his body heat. Almost without intention it took on his mess of jaundiced feelings: vanity and envy, escape, and overwhelmingly, the failure of his attempts at art to render anything like genuine meaning. 

There was a postbox on the St Erth platform where he waited for the mainline connection. He addressed an envelope to himself, c/o St Ives Post Office, and slipped the shame-hot piece inside.   
  


* * *

**  
Cornwall, present**

The train was late. Aziraphale glanced again at his watch. This delay was passing more slowly than stopped time, and he didn’t particularly wish to be alone with his thoughts. 

“In a hurry?” The woman jammed next to him on the platform sounded sympathetic. She shifted her handbag to the other shoulder and tightened her scarf against the gusting wind. “I’m on this route every day, and it’s getting worse, I’m sorry to tell you. Great Western, my arse.”

“Mmm,” he agreed, polite.

“Is it me,” she continued, “or is January dragging on forever? This feels like the eighth Tuesday of January. Who needs this many Tuesdays in January?”

Aziraphale tugged his hat more firmly over his ears and scowled hopefully up at the screen. The board was now saying twenty-seven minutes. The main display, however, showed a different train heading away from Truro in only five. What to do?

He stepped away to a quiet corner of the platform, pulled out his pocket telephone and tapped out:

_Help I’m dithering_

Rather gratifyingly, the little ellipsis appeared immediately.

_danger of discorporation?_

From inconvenience perhaps.

_No._

_r u hangry?_

Well, yes, but as the last photo they’d exchanged had been of Aziraphale’s resplendent Sunday lunch in Penzance, he’d likely get a mocking emoji in return for the admission.

_something about me?_

_Not everything is about you, fiend_

_then whatev dither away v on-brand_

The alternate train was leaving from the other side of the platform. He’d planned on heading to Falmouth but perhaps—

_I’m going to be spontaneous_ , Aziraphale typed with chilly fingers.

_uh-oh_ , came the response, and that was enough to see him warmly across the way.

The neverending month sputtered to its close and lurched into February. Aziraphale surrendered to temptation and hired a car, the initial joy of the train having faded into too much hard work in the sulky winter weather. It was a grey Škoda, very staid when compared to the Bentley. But almost any vehicle would be, bless her ostentatious little wheels.

“You ‘ere for Poldark, my ‘ansum?” asked the hire agent.

She handed him a stack of brochures to Predannack Wollas and the mines. A strapping young man brooded on the glossy cover, wearing the sort of greatcoat that Aziraphale knew from experience was a flapping nightmare on a galloping horse. 

“Most are,” she said with a wink and a once-over.

Aziraphale found himself at Charleston Harbour for a few days, but cream teas (jam first) and tall ships felt at odds with his unsettled mood. While he’d planned to travel to Padstow and linger among the Michelin stars, it felt...wrong. Ill-fitting and awkward, as though the Aziraphale who would carelessly indulge in such appetites was not the Aziraphale who currently sat down by the quay, collar upturned, wondering if _spontaneous_ was another word for _uncertain_.

He drove, letting the winding roads tangle with his thoughts. Eventually he stopped at the north coast where the cliffs and sea were wild and ragged. He walked the paths near Tintagel and let the crashing Atlantic winds scour him empty. 

Back down through the Lizard, and then around about pretty coastal villages, where the old fishermans’ cottages were gaily painted with sunny colours and Kernow names, yet so quiet. Shops shuttered out of season and the summer bunting still hung, faded now, across the market streets. The necessities of life were better had at the discount supermarkets and out-of-town retail centres. No money for festive lights; no footfall to appreciate them. Darkened windows gaped at him, just another wealthy Londoner to their empty stare, as he searched for an open café and a cuppa against the cold.

At his B&B in Fowey, speaking to his bustling hosts about the state of things now that they’d achieved their so-proclaimed sovereignty from Europe. A story, with tragicomedy to read between the lines: the pubs closing most weeknights, can’t get the staff on the wages they used to pay; the hosts’ daughter, teaching in Germany at a good school, planning to stay despite the visa issues, no intention to come home like they’d hoped. Winter holidays in Spain, their twenty-year ritual break, too expensive to bother with now the ferries had cut back their routes and the sterling had dropped.

“Worth it though,” she said, sliding his breakfast onto the table. “Better, to be out.”

February marched on into the long slope of winter where the days were longer but the damp still settled. He went down to the working docks of Mevagissey, watching the remnants of their fleet go out past the harbour wall to pot for lobsters that could be sold on direct to the restaurants of the south-east. Only one of the family boats was crewed by a man in his thirties; the rest of the fishermen pushed seventy, the future uncertain for this way of life.

He meandered in a rough zigzag, taking a deep breath on one coast to plunge through the granite spine of the county to the other. There would always be life by the sea, in the coastal towns and villages. Humans would always flock to the glorious margins, no matter how those margins made his spirit ache. But they did not flock to the interior, with its moors and old mines, and the now-isolated towns that once served and were served by the railways. These landlocked towns stretched out plaintive fingers to the A30. Ranging rovers from London favoured them on long weekends but only stopped for petrol, though, on their way to second homes and holiday rentals on the water.

Aziraphale stood outside a newsagent’s munching on a Picnic—such a practical chocolate bar, a good serving of nuts and fruit—reading the notices plastered in the window. Here, it was all “Flat Wanted” and “Caravan Share Available”. The locals certainly weren’t affording a picturesque fisherman’s cottage with garden and sea views on the Roseland coast. 

(“Some other bastard came up with the idea of property prices for holiday homes. Though I reckon I should’ve got royalties for laying the groundwork here in London.”)

Crumpling his wrapper, Aziraphale idly considered making his way north again, over to Devon, but he had a nagging feeling that there was something more for him down here, some faintly-heard pulse. Not a memory, but something not of the mortal world, something ethereal or infernal or Other. It hit him occasionally, depending on where he was, but also what ambient mood of humanity he was amongst. At first he’d chalked it up to the glut of ancient monuments that littered the countryside—dolmens and standing stones and waterfalls, all repositories for hopes and beliefs, more of them still resonant here than in much of the rest of the country. But this was something alive, a dull throb that—in essence if not in aesthetic—bore a strong resemblance to the chiming, joyful wash of love he’d felt from Tadfield and from Adam.

This wasn’t love, though. Far from it. So he motored back south, crossing the Fal on a chain ferry and marvelling at its workings. The Škoda had built-in navigation but not quite the same sense of curiosity that the Bentley did, so he had to choose his B roads himself. Eventually he felt his way to the edges of the strange, griping impression. He knew he had it when he turned out of a winding hedgerow lane to be confronted with traffic backed up at a roundabout with six exits.

(“Look,” Crowley protested, “we may not like it, but you have to admit that Pollution does really imaginative work, and multi-lane roundabouts are pretty fucking genius.”)

He pulled into the motorway services. If he was wrong, at the very least there’d be a hot cup of tea and maybe some chips. The weather was mizzling, and inside, others had the same instinct to be out of the rain. The carpet was an eye-watering pattern to hide the constant stains, the plasticky seating as shiny and glaring as the lighting. In a place like this, it would be so easy for moods to fray and for good intentions to be lost to tiredness and temper. 

As he found a spare table and gave his order, Aziraphale found himself a little cheered instead. Families with small children and tired, loving smiles. A couple looking at their photographs and giggling. Three bearded lorry drivers playing a high-spirited round of cards. 

The chips were a tad cold, the water not hot enough for his tea, but he didn’t want to announce his presence by fixing them. He got up and wandered to the condiments counter, taking his time to select salt and extra vinegar, and all the while, a damp, fetid alteration overtook the pastry-and-coffee-soaked air.

He dawdled his way back to his table, a circuitous route, watching out.

“You cheating arsehole—”

It started as a furious whisper, but the louder last word made heads turn to the source. The couple. Perhaps the lad should have edited his photos before going over them with his partner. 

A blast of chill followed a feverish belch of hot air across the room. He lifted his water glass as he watched to see how things would play out, then yelped as it froze in his hand. He swiftly put the glass down, the ice tinkling. 

Confrontation. He _had_ promised Crowley.

“No pudding then,” he sighed, and pulled out his pocket telephone. He craned around for the waitress. “My bill, if you’d be so kind—ah.”

The demon was red-haired, which was interesting, and either a coincidence or a very transparent ploy by the infernal bureaucracy. There was an old bloodstain off-centre on her skirt, and a petulant twist to her mouth. She leaned on the chair back with a bill in her hand that Aziraphale had no intention of ever paying. Or even touching. 

Aziraphale smiled at her, which she clearly hated, and he held up a finger. “One moment.”

From the phone on the table, Crowley, his voice rising bright and welcome. “Angel. Alright?”

The demon shifted, pursing her mouth. Her pink gloss was half-gone, her lips bitten and chapped.

“Crowley.” The name was for the benefit of the demon across from him. “The event we agreed on.”

A hiss, then, “Okay, hit me up. What are the options?”

His smile widened, and he was grateful to have reclaimed some of the recent puzzle pieces of his Self. Some of the more single-minded instincts. 

“Option A,” said Aziraphale, thinking of Anathema and her delightful way of enumerating possibilities. “I skip all thoughts of pudding, pay my bill and drive on.”

“Hmm, seems unlikely.”

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it? Option B, then. I order. The gentleman across the way calls his wife a name I won’t repeat. The lorry driver in the striped shirt stabs his friend through the hand with a fork. It escalates, and I lose my appetite.”

The demon bared her teeth at him.

A short silence from the phone.

“Aziraphale,” came Crowley’s voice. “Are you actually keeping your promise not to engage by yourself?”

“Oh, do try not to sound so smug about it. You know full well options C through E would involve a level of interference that I’d need to consult on.”

“What about Option F?” the demon asked. She leaned across the table, her hair falling across his hands. It stung where it touched but he made a point of staying where he was. 

“Option F,” Aziraphale said, “is Fuck Right Off, and I smite you out of Earthly existence.”

“Sounds,” said Crowley, “like you’ve got this covered.”

“Yes, I rather think I do. Speak soon, my dear.” 

He pressed the button to end the call and pulled back to give the demon a steady once-over. She was wearing a name-tag that read FLO. If she had an animal aspect, he couldn’t see it, and he had no interest in metaphysically poking about more than he already had. She prickled, hot and cold, every bit of her in any dimension spiky with discomfort and irritation.

“Do you know, you remind me of the very worst days of my most favourite friend. Which leaves me in a quandary. I’m inclined to let you alone, but I’d prefer you didn’t tear this place apart. Have you realised yet, I wonder, how much more interesting the humans are when you leave them be?”

“What,” she sneered, stabbing a finger against the tabletop where his telephone had been, fingernails bitten down to the quick, bleeding onto the formica. “Like you and that traitor ‘left them be’ and clocked off from your eternal purpose? Fucking sickening. I mean, he’s a demon, he’s got some excuse, but what kind of angel—”

“I’d remind you of Option F,” he said, and let the blood on the table boil to evaporation. Nasty stuff to leave out for humans, and she needed to know that he wasn’t actually infinitely patient.

She sat back, tucked her hands into her armpits. A waft of sweat reached him. “Why’re you here?”

“You’re very…loud.” 

“YOU KIDS GET IN THE BLOODY CAR NOW!” bellowed a man out by the doors.

She nodded her chin up with a satisfied grin. “Yup.”

“My dear, I believe that one was what’s called free will.”

She rolled her eyes. “Satan below, you _do_ think you’re all that. Look, no-one cares about you. Or the traitor. I think some of the Dukes might be a bit pissed off still but, hey, they won’t say it. Lessons were learned, end of. So,” she stood up, “some of us have a job to be getting on with, which brings me back to my question, why are you here, ‘cos you obviously ain’t—”

He cut her off. “How long have they had you up here, waiting for orders?”

Her face went to stone, and she glanced away. “Don’t see that’s any of your business.”

It was a good working hypothesis, he thought. Hell had their fiends languishing on zero-hours contracts; Heaven was shoving newbies into service. Underemployment and precarious working conditions would certainly prevent the “going native” that had indefinitely postponed Armageddon. 

“A suggestion,” he said, smiling his very brightest, and a small part of him enjoyed her wince. “There’s enough misery in these times without your sort of unimaginative, low-level,” he glanced over to where the girl with the cheating boyfriend was crying on the telephone, “tedious activities. If you don’t know when they’re taking you back, have a bit of ambition. I’ve heard playing the long game is more rewarding.”

She made a disgusted face and backed away. “Ugh, gross. I bet the rumours about you two are true.”

He certainly wasn’t going to dignify _that._ “If I may—”

“I ain’t got to listen to this,” she muttered, but she stayed.

“That most favourite friend of mine. He helped me to see that I didn’t have to be on tenterhooks all the time. That I could _make_ things happen, instead of waiting for them.”

“This ‘free will’ again?” she scorned, her hands twisting on her skirt. “You’re a fucking angel, what do _you_ know about _free will_?”

Aziraphale let his smile hold sympathy this time. “Only what he taught me, my dear. And that it is hard, so very hard to exercise, but once you do—oh. Then you’ll understand.”  
  


* * *

  
He walked: dipping into the hidden combes of Exmoor, the forests gleaming with winter light. His boots were sturdy and his tread firm across gorse-strewn moors. As he had in the North, he found strength and resolve in the spring of the turf underfoot. He let his mind clear as much as he could.

But it lingered, the disquiet. He scrambled up the steep ascent at Porlock, but the exertion of the climb did nothing to shake the feeling free. He caught himself rubbing at the backs of his hands, as though being near to Flo, the demon, had stained him in some unseen way. The pubs of the town were plain and hearty fare, but while the heavy food assuaged the physical appetite he worked up on his walks, the ache of mental discontent remained. He texted Crowley once, sharing a laugh at his own expense— _At least there’s no embarrassing memory that_ I _was the one to interrupt_ Xanadu—but kept mainly to himself, feeling reluctant to share his poor mood when Crowley appeared to be in such good spirits.

Walking the South-West Coast Path in mid-February was a solitary business with the tracks so rough and mud-riven. Only the hardiest of locals walked alongside him, with a nod and a wry “nice day for it” from inside the hood of their raincoats, their dogs tugging them along until they abandoned the path for one of the car-park loops. On one morning, halfway back to his base in Porlock, the weather turned once more. A dirty rain that was more sleet than downpour soaked him as it rolled in from the water. Aziraphale endured it for ten minutes before deciding that hairshirts were nothing more than ridiculous when sopping wet, metaphorical or otherwise. A cranky bit of Intent saw him and his boots sheltered from the worst of the weather.

He stopped in at Dunster one morning, but he never got farther than the castle gate. There was a newsagent by the side of the green, the displayed red-tops all blaring xenophobia and misogyny, and for one moment it all came crashing down. He looked at those angry little words of angry little humans and he felt like leaving, just leaving. This place, this country, this body, this Earth, this—this, this, this.

He had _choices_ , now. And he was an _angel._

Aziraphale returned to Porlock. He missed his bookshop intensely, until he realised that, for the first time in two centuries, to imagine himself back there wasn't satisfying. And, damn it all, he knew beyond his bones that he wasn’t through here.

Fool, to have dared speak to a demon about free will _._

He found some remedy for his ill mood in scones (and jam beyond compare) at Watersmeet, then more again in Lynmouth. He’d not been to the fishing village before, and was immediately taken with its aspect: nestled into a river gorge, its sister village of Victoriana rising hoity and toity from the cliff above. He thought, of course, of Crowley while wondering over the cliff railway and its cunning water-powered mechanisms, still pristine over a century later.

_Putting the fun into funicular_ , he texted, with a selfie.

_puns are the devils work angel watch it_

_Word-play, my dear, and the point stands._

Aziraphale walked the riverbanks for a while, sharing his lunch with a mallard that wouldn’t take no for an answer, before wandering down to the stony beach. In a small pavilion, weather-beaten information boards told a story of human tenacity and faith, the kind of miracle that needed no divinity to bring it into being.

As Principality, he was connected to this island and its people. He had not known before of this particular stormy night at the cusp of the twentieth century, but he knew that if he were to look at his map now, he would see this place and that moment limned in gold. 

How many times had he reached for familiar comfort these past days? _An angel_ , he’d told himself, over and over. (Centuries, millenia.) _I’m an angel_. And yet. There in front of him was yet more evidence that those imperfect, marvellous earth-bound humans could bring themselves just as close to Her.

Aziraphale stroked eager fingertips over the board, illuminating the faded type into pristine condition as he stole the story for his own. It unspooled into the aether for him, the way he and Crowley would share experiences when there was catching up to be done and the vagaries of speech and recollection would simply not satiate.

_Frenzied waters, black and cold and roiling, and too fierce at Lynmouth for the lifeboat to take to the sea to rescue a foundering ship. Slim hope—but enough to chance—that the storm might let them launch instead at Porlock. And so, a hundred Lynmouth men and twenty horses hauled their lifeboat up the cliff paths and across the headland. Strangers near drowning, their lives in the balance as for thirteen desperate miles salvation sailed through blood and sweat and the open moor. Desolation as the wheels came off the hauling coach; dismay as the horses fell dead in the road. But those men who carried on and came to the Weir at dawn, they were as angels to the souls they saved._

With a soft sigh, Aziraphale turned away to look out over the water. There was a lesson to be learned—he gave chase, but frustratingly, it eluded him.

Nothing for it but a hard trudge up the cliffs, then. At forks and turns, the coast path signs counted down the diminishing miles; here and there on trees or fence posts, the little acorn emblem reassured him that he was still on track. The narrow-cut trail allowed only single-file as it ascended up the cliffs, with a steep drop down to a sea that was a shocking blue even on the grey winter day.

Later, the cloud cover lifted to brightness, but it was a poor cousin to the golden light and sands he’d left at St Ives. He laughed—he’d been tromping the coast miserably for a time back in the fifties as well. Sulking at his failed turn at the artistic life, or so he’d rationalised at the time. The piece of pottery in a dog-eared envelope had returned to him a morass of emotions that were so confused and so small he wondered initially if he’d just been ashamed that he was acting too human.

But not at all. He’d left the demon Flo, taking counsel of his own words and strode to the car with purpose, searching unthinkingly in his satchel for the pottery piece. He’d sat and held it, understanding then that he’d not been ashamed of acting human, but of not being human _enough_. Not being _himself_. Not understanding, after countless lifetimes around them, that people created art not only to make meaning for others, but to find meaning for themselves.

What would it mean to make meaning for _himself_?

An _angel_.

He descended. Into a wooded cove, and the sound of the waves receded. The tree cover lightened, a sign pointed to the left, and the path took a hairpin. A stone wall dropped away to his right, neatly containing the gradient of a valley. He pushed open a gate to where a little stone church was nestled sturdily in the dell. On either side, the slopes rose up again, and behind the church the valley ran down to the sea, though even the bare winter branches were thick enough to obscure the view.

A woman taking photographs of gravestones turned at the sound of his feet crunching on the gravel path. She gave him a polite smile, but headed for the gate. As she ambled away, Aziraphale could feel he had the place to himself. 

The church in its secret combe—at least a mile’s walk from the road—was the very definition of peaceful. Sanctuary. A small, ancient chapel, built for two dozen souls. Gulls occasioned high overhead, and a few blackbirds twittered in the bushes. He imagined the churchyard in high summer: the hazy heat from the vegetation, the buzz of insects, patches of wildflowers, walkers sitting on the benches with their packed lunches and their blisters. But today had its simple pleasures too. The yew was vigorous, and beneath her berry-dotted branches the grave markers were a friendly cluster rather than austere rows. He turned his head to the smell of burning charcoal, until he realised it had wafted in from the past.

Even if a lemony-bright feeling of love hadn’t lingered in the air, the dried flowers and leaves scattered on the stones of the tiny porch told of a celebration earlier that day. Not the earthy sensation of a wedding, but something singular, tinged with fear. He ducked under the lintel into the white-washed church, the dark oak pews lit by rough-hewn leaded windows.

Ah—a christening. The stone font was still half-full, a good solid Saxon bowl for dunking a baby properly, none of the silly dripping that had been the fashion of late. He dipped a hand in and swirled it idly. Warm to his touch. While the church felt cheerful and safe—with mild smells of a lingering pine wreath and the baby’s talcum powder—it was hard not to think about the bath he’d taken in holy water, in Crowley’s corporation. In Hell.

(“Perfect. Brilliant, you’re so brilliant,” Crowley had said, his pinched face awash with relief as Aziraphale explained what he thought Agnes Nutter’s prophecy meant for their survival. But Aziraphale hadn’t felt brilliant, just terrified, his ears ringing numb, tamping down on panic, as they searched for the right level of disguise. Too shallow, and the demons would sniff him out, the angels would see Crowley. But hide their Selves too deep, and whatever punishment was meted out would damage the corporation and reveal the deception. That day, Aziraphale hadn’t had a clue, too, about what it meant that his physical body was only eight hours old, untested and unknown, demanded back into being by the dissatisfaction of the Antichrist.

And Crowley’s own body was so well-lived! It couldn’t help but take on the serpent; the deeper swirling, watery depths in its very atoms. The holy water had been nothing but sparkling warmth at first, but as the charade progressed Aziraphale felt warning needles, fevered pinpricks that he only hoped would fade before Crowley had to take them back into himself.)

He shook off the recollection and withdrew his hand from the font. The marks on his knuckle were darker than ever now, further dots trailing to his wrist. He pulled back a cuff to see they continued up, interloping the celestial circle of the globe on his forearm.

Those Lynmouth life-savers had no map to guide them out in the storm. Humans so often had no directions when they struck out with their blind bravery. He sat in one of the pews as the afternoon faded, let a thousand years’ comings and goings sit with him, births and betrothal, peace and loss, fury and love. He was reminded of another church back in 1941, the smell of scorched shoe-leather, and another act of faith and courage, though he’d never been permitted to give it that name or thanks. 

A weak ray of light slanted low beside him on the pew, travelling slowly over to illuminate his coat pocket. He reached for the piece of pottery again, the swirl of red and black glaze beautiful in the evening sun, the single gold arc in the clay gleaming.

They were puzzle pieces. So close, but they weren’t a match. There was more, still eluding him, but he knew now wouldn’t achieve anything standing on the shore, wringing his hands at the waves. 

The pocket telephone rang and rang. Just as Aziraphale feared it would go to the message-box, Crowley picked up. 

“Sorry, angel, down a cellar and up a ladder.” His voice came tinny, echoing slightly, and in the background was the telltale sound of the gramophone.

“You’re in the vaults.”

“Yup. Did you know there’s a Gentileschi tucked away? Which of us geniuses acquired that?”

“I—I have a question for you, if I may. Something to ask.”

A dull click of fingers and the music ceased. A waiting silence, and when Aziraphale didn’t immediately speak, Crowley did it for him. “Anything you need.” He sounded sure, but there was hesitation at the edges of the words. 

Aziraphale looked up at the leaded window of the church and the way it sent fragments of light dancing across the walls. “It’s a puzzle,” he said. “I’m putting all the pieces together, but they don’t all fit. There’s a gap, right in the middle.” He touched his chest reflexively. “I’m missing, _something_ —”

This time Crowley didn’t help him. Aziraphale drew himself up, drew on resolve borrowed from this place, and asked, “Where is it, the one you’ve been worrying I’d find?”

An indrawn breath.

“I didn’t mark it on my map. It’s not been misfiled in my shop. All I know is I can feel the shape of its absence, this missing piece, and I—”

He ached, now, to heft its weight for himself, to touch the fissures in its surface and see if they could be sealed.

“Tell me. Where can I find the memory I’ve forgotten I lost?” He closed his eyes to ask the rest: “The memory about _us_.”

### Authors' Notes

**Cider  
** Look, we take our [alcoholic apple](https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/the-somerset-cider-trail-from-orchard-to-glass) beverages very seriously in the West Country.

**Cornish fisheries and Brexit  
**This story used to have a lot more about Brexit. We cut a lot out but decided to leave [some](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/here-s-why-not-everyone-in-fishing-is-excited-about-brexit/) of that exploration in this chapter.

**Culbone Church  
** The [littlest church](https://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=2391) in England, tucked away on Exmoor just as described. When you arrive there, glutes burning after you’ve slogged up and down the cliffsides of the South-West Coast Path from Lynmouth, time stops. A special place.

Reportedly, there is a painting of Adam and Eve in the Garden under the wall plaster in the church, but poor Aziraphale was a bit done in by the end of this chapter so we ignored that little detail to give him his resolve.

**Flo  
** Flo was inspired by a particularly egregious month of menstruation. She’s played in this story by [ Catherine Tate](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/apr/27/catherine-tate-show-live-tour-uk#img-1).

**Great Western, my arse  
**Circe commutes by train on the Great Western Railway during non-pandemic times. This scene was basically therapy for the January platform blues.

**Lynmouth lifeboat rescue  
** An amazing real life [story](https://rnli.org/about-us/our-history/timeline/1899-launch-from-porlock-weir); just the thing for a soul-searching angel.

**_Poldark_** **in Cornwall  
**So many [scenic](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/nbVFGmB7lFVmJJKpjrCQV/poldarks-cornwall-locations) filming locations, so many opportunities for sea-framed brooding.

**Postcard to Crowley**  
The [postcard](http://cornishmemory.com/item/WAT_19_181) that Aziraphale sent is this one. Weirdly kittens were a thing.

**St Ives artists  
** St Ives has been an “artists colony” for a long time, largely due to the sublime quality of the light. (It’s indescribable.) In the first half of the twentieth century dozens of influential and influenced artists made a home there or visited. Now there is a Tate Gallery which has an excellent collection of British art of that period. Barbara Hepworth’s studio/garden is also possible to see (and you should!). Featured in this story, in order of appearance, are (the very underrated) Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Barbara Hepworth, her ratbag husband Ben Nicholson, and Peter Lanyon. Here’s a 1959 [Pathé video](https://youtu.be/R1-F4jDnmJs) about art in St Ives 

The [ glacier painting ](https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/glacier-crystal-grindelwald-197775/view_as/grid/search/makers:wilhelmina-barns-graham-19122004/page/1) that [ WBG ](https://www.instagram.com/p/BrU6g7TlA5J/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) is working on; [ Lanyon’s painting ](https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/porthleven-199756/search/makers:peter-lanyon-19181964/page/3) that makes Aziraphale cross that he didn’t think of it first; the [ Leach Pottery ](https://www.leachpottery.com/) where our angel bashes his frustrations out in clay; if you are nerdily interested in glazes [ these two teapots ](https://www.objectsofuse.com/leach-standard-ware-teapot) are examples of what he uses; and WBG really did [ love the brooch](https://www.instagram.com/p/BpZJEBmhQAt/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link).

**Torbay Express  
** You can still get deluxe steam [train](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torbay_Express) excursions through to the resort towns of the Cornish Riviera. 

**Wassailing  
** Much of the detail on wassailing folklore and custom in this fic (in fact, it’s a great reference for British traditional customs in general) comes from Ronald Hutton’s _Stations of the Sun_ , which is an epic trove of historical scholarship regarding the ritual year across the British Isles. You might, if you are of a certain age, also enjoy this utterly pure Web 1.0 account (with pictures!) of [ Somerset wassailing in 1999](https://web.archive.org/web/20030819234819/http://www.anglo-saxon.demon.co.uk/folkcustoms/wassailing/), preserved on the Wayback Machine.

**_Xanadu_ ** **and the man from Porlock  
** Aziraphale had been _fairly_ sure he hadn’t been [in the vicinity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_from_Porlock) in 1797—but with this memory malarkey, he hadn’t been completely certain. He had always felt great compassion for Samuel and the _Xanadu interruptus_. How irritating it must be to suddenly forget what one was intending to write, in the middle of 

  
  


#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 12

[Winter Fields](https://open.spotify.com/track/06UZFnmmVngAWfuXZFxDyT?si=egJXU6OdQZClfqsy76sDKw)  
Bats for Lashes

[Merrie Land](https://open.spotify.com/track/2TfuGRkFZGU7NcYIr3Oamo?si=46hGXcKDQOyvBob910t-cw)  
The Good, The Bad, and The Queen

#### Perfume

[Charcoal](https://www.instagram.com/p/BRL4BrRjFdP/), by Perfumer H _  
_ Bonfire and damp forest walks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/619924873038512128/planning-permission). In which she explains our music choices for this chapter, and some of the other tunes that inspired our writing. We'd love to know how you're enjoying the playlists :)


	13. Mayfair & Soho, February

A few days after returning from Somerset, Crowley rescued his wassailing crown from the back of the Bentley. The twigs of dogwood and broom were still pliable enough for a vining philodendron to twine its new shoot around. A deep breath in brought him the heady and still-lingering scent of the bonfire, the sparkling fizz of the cider, and the faintest sense of the angel. Hmm. The leaves worked, but it wasn’t quite right—sometimes art needed to trump authenticity. He stuffed the in-between spaces of the twigs with a little bit of moss and a lot of general-purpose threat, and yes, that would do.

Rain lashed at the windows of the Chesterfield Street house. Back when he’d been on the clock, the beginning of the year had been hectic with capitalising on the misery of an overspent Christmas and the fear of tax self-assessment deadlines. Relationships that held on for the festivities were swept out with a new year’s resolution; the elderly and the ill who held on for their families were squabbled over when gone. Fearful, petty cowardice. A time of little sins, and a nice yearly bonus for a jobbing demon.

Still there, even now, and still his (thank Lucifer, literally) to take when he fancied. Like today: a wander past the magistrates court, the hospital, a quick pint at the pub, and the vinegar of human meanness pickled away pleasurably. But without some larger transgressive project demanding that power, the pickle fermented, the build up both acid and intoxicating at the boundary of his corporation.

An hour editing Wikipedia alleviated the feeling for a while. He played about with topics tragically helpful for students sitting their exams, leaving the promising pages at stunted stubs. Links re-routed through to articles in minority languages. A blissful few minutes were spent correctly and fulsomely describing the scandals of major political figures before the human gnomes reverted his edits.

Shutting his laptop with a satisfied hum, Crowley launched himself up to consider the plants on the back wall. A schlumbergera, past its flowering prime, trembled a little when he picked it up to make room for the philodendron-wrapped twigs.

“Don’t be so ridiculous,” he muttered, finding a cool place for it to go dormant by the north skylight.

In Crowley’s plans, the central light-well in the new house would have a similar aspect. A larger space though, with different levels; if he got it right, it would be glorious. The sun would slant in on three sides, and there’d be more variety in what could grow. 

He took up the fronds of the adiantum appraisingly and surveyed his collection; the indoor jungle only a little winter-depleted. Hopefully, there would be some future tussle with the angel regarding the relative footprint of books versus plants. In the middle of a book-spiel, a certain ethereal timbre would creep into Aziraphale’s voice, and even with a few millennia of trying to be cool about it, Crowley had to admit it gave him a thrill. 

Continuing his inspection he found the musa was growing particularly well, which was gratifying given its traumatic Christmas. (Aziraphale had been over-enthusiastic about its glossy heights to the point where even a veteran gardener such as Crowley hadn’t been at all sure how he’d claw back the damage done.) He wiped down the leaves, and the pleasure of the texture, the repetition, was soothing.

His thoughts settled on the angel. 

There was some new dimensionality to him, some glossy, transcendental needlework where half the time Crowley hadn’t even been aware of the rough darns. Aziraphale was still squinchy-faced about that _p-_ word, even when the relevant ancient markings had etched themselves back onto his skin in a shouty way. (“It’s not like your tattoos appeared when you spent a week on holiday doing Reykjavik hot springs and new Nordic cuisine, angel, come on.”) Yet there was no question that the, yes, _pilgrimage_ , was making its alteration felt.

And there was sharing.

Actual discussion of things that Aziraphale had hidden away, and that Crowley had either no idea had happened, or had long forgotten, or had long ago come to terms with.

He had no idea how much of the full story of discovery that Aziraphale’s sharing encompassed, but the memories he’d related over Christmas ranged from the understandably consequential to things Crowley had himself tucked away to rot.

(“Was I very awful—?”

“A fucking tyrant, to be honest. I didn’t need to be ordered about by the Righteous of Heaven, and you know what, it’s great you’re having some personal growth but apparently I’m still a bit pissed off about the plague, so. Let’s just go back to ignoring the fourteenth century again, and you’re forfeiting the last mince pie.”) 

Then, sat atop Glastonbury Tor, full of wassailing cheer, to things he was secretly pleased to be said aloud.

(“Lust?” Crowley tried to stop laughing when, through a still-tipsy haze, he realised Aziraphale’s expression was a little crestfallen. But he couldn’t resist adding, “These corporations are designed for bodily feelings. What are you even talking about, you practically invented the laying on of hands.”

Aziraphale turned away, and whatever he said was too light, stolen away by a gust of witching-hour wind. The gist of the memory, the recounting, was heavier though, and it sat between them when Aziraphale turned back, not solid enough to grasp, but comforting to Crowley nonetheless.

“I mean. I don’t blame you. I was very pretty during the Akkadian Empire.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, wry. “Shame you’re an old sot well past your prime now.”)

Humans spoke warmly of patience, the deferral of pleasure and reward. Depending on the religious fashion of the day, it might even be accorded a virtue. If you were a demon charged with tripping people up on the uneven path of a good life, impatience made an excellent pothole. 

Crowley was deeply skeptical that the Almighty placed any such store by patience. After all, She’d been the one to throw out her favourite in a huff. Hell on the other hand? Claimed more souls with a long game.

If Aziraphale asked him—ha, safe there, direct questions were _not_ his style—what would he say? _Yes, angel, you’re the longest game? More of a puzzle than a game though, hard to say who wins, hope it’s both of us._

Patience was fine; Crowley was reconciled to the long walk. Didn’t run any longer at shimmering horizons, could tell a mirage a mile off. And the walk itself wasn’t all bad, as long as you didn’t bother with hope. 

But then, on that freezing night in a raucous orchard, Aziraphale had _looked_ at him, full to the brim with borrowed joy (stolen, he never asked). 

What had he seen?

Crowley knew what _he’d_ seen. The angel, the limits of his newly-refigured self now something tempting and visible, licks of flame and scary brightness terribly appealing to a demon whose base nature wanted that incandescence all for himself—

He circled back to the sunken sofa, the fizzing sensation he’d banked earlier predictably resurfacing. Flung himself across the cushions. 

Aziraphale was sharing, talking to him. Properly. Looking at him. Properly.

He dropped his head back, let his wings push against the invisible barrier and slide free.

Patience. Patience was fine.

A planet—Mars?—was visible through the skylights as dusk drew in. Crowley watched it through heavy eyes, sleepy and content, as he slouched across the sofa, one hand slowly sifting through the feathers spread across his body, the other stroking across the sigil at his cheekbone. 

Celestial bodies had been on his mind in more ways than one since they’d sat up on Glastonbury Tor a few nights ago. Conversation meandered, as it always did, braiding back along that far away and long ago Euphrates to pitch up comfortably on the shores of the Milky Way above.

(“The Chinese that call it a river, right?”

They were far enough from any major town that light pollution was minimal.

“ _Al-Sahm_ ,” Aziraphale picked out a small group of stars, too faint to ever be seen in London. “Did you read it’s going nova soon?”

Crowley screwed up his nose and ran through the mental catalogue...Ti, Oistos, no, Sagittae now. The arrow. Aziraphale habitually used the first name he ever heard humans give to constellations; Crowley couldn’t even chalk it up to traditionalism because when _he_ referred passingly to apricots or barley in long-forgotten languages he just got a tart remark that he might be having a senior moment.

“Mmm.” Crowley had indeed read about the nova. Found it puzzling, too, that humans were clever and interested enough to figure out the cataclysmic business of Sagittae in 2083 but not bothered overmuch about the accelerated wrecking of their own planet. “Collision first, then nova. It’s a binary system.”

Aziraphale smiled. “Yes.”

Astronomers had classified the spectra from V Sagittae as luminous and supersoft, which worked descriptive double-duty for the angel’s own outline against the night sky. Crowley’s fingers had twitched, wanting to reach out and curl tendrils of that outline in-between his knuckles, but he settled for watching. 

“I suppose you knew?” Aziraphale said, after a while. “How long they’d last, I mean. If they’d explode or shrink under their own weight.”

Crowley didn’t remember. “It was just the fun of creation, you know? Smash some atoms together and whirl them around. No-one likes calculus, angel, I just went for aesthetics.” And he’d scuppered any opportunity for a do-over by not keeping his mouth shut, but hey-ho, he had his own first-hand knowledge of the changes that could happen to a celestial body. 

“Remember that astronomer from Yorkshire, the one with—”

“Extraordinary eyebrows?”

“—ideas way too advanced for the times, but yes,” Crowley laughed, “more eyebrows than one man really needs. Why’d Heaven single him out for divine inspiration, then? Didn’t do him much good in his lifetime. And it took ages for anyone to recognise what he’d figured out, binary stars and all. He was so clever, honestly, he didn’t need my help in the end, just someone to listen while he worked it through.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, “I’ve found myself that’s just what’s needed.”)

Crowley lifted a drowsy hand from his wing and gestured up to where the fan of an over-achieving palm obscured the meditative path of the planet across the skylight. “Move over, there’s a lass.”

The leaves rustled, the creak of aging glass squeaking against the cast-iron fretwork. The windows were a copy of a glasshouse no longer in existence, a once-glorious palace of tropical green in the English countryside that Crowley had loved, and lost.

He slipped a finger into his mouth to get it nice and wet. Skimmed it up along the snake branded through his form in this dimension and those deeper. Sensation shivered through its coils. Crowley’s corporal body relaxed into the cushions, the weight of his wing gratifying across his warming skin. His stroking found a rhythm—well-practiced and satisfying—that hitched as he remembered the orchard. The angel... _looking_. Chilly fingers at Crowley’s cheekbone, tantalisingly close to touching him right where Crowley was touching himself now.

Patience. Patience was fine. And hope—

(“Heaven,” Aziraphale said, the tiniest of smiles playing over his face, “didn’t quite realise just how clever those ideas might be.” Softness in his gaze. “But Heaven knew just the right mind for the job.”)

* * *

Early February, and Crowley was in the workroom when the boundaries of the bookshop gave a discordant _twang_. Deep in contemplation of Shami’s latest delivery of restrictive covenants, he waggled a hand in the general direction of the front door. Ten minutes later, against the soundscape of Anathema puttering about the shop and his own hisses of frustration, he rang his lawyer.

“I’m a demon, I bloody _met_ Hammurabi, I did the casework that inspired _Bleak House_ , and even I am astounded by the gratuitous evil in the Lewes District Council planning forms.”

“Hello and Happy New Year to you, too,” said Shami. “We’re all fine, ta. I know this stuff’s tedious but you’re the one building in a national park and wanting to follow the rules about it.”

“To be fair, I predate the national park. And you know it’s not only me to consider here.”

“That’s sweet, really. Because it’s coming up Valentine’s Day, I’ll give you two minutes _pro bono_ to get your rant in before I start charging you for my time.”

“What in Satan’s name are you on about, _Valentine’s Day_?”

She chuckled down the line. “If you can’t take a bit of teasing, Crowley, those forms are going to eat you alive.”

“May I remind you, _demon_ , and more to the fucking point, _demonic family contract_.”

“And in a similar spirit, may I remind you, _Spring_. Surely you’re far enough along that you can answer a few questions about intended elevations?” A pause. “Or is that why you’re cranky? Design not going so well?”

“It’s fine.”

“Mmm-hmm. Impatient then. So you’ll have no trouble getting me the details in the next few days please. Don’t call again unless it’s a show-stopper. Or if you want advice on flowers.” She rang off.

Oh, she could be absolutely unbearable when she wanted. Crowley smiled, proud. One of his best pieces of work, honestly.

Setting aside the emails for the moment, he pulled open AutoCAD. There were concept sketches out on the draughting easel but he was leaning more into the science than art of tectonic architecture that morning and was itching to map out more of his thinking for the light-well. (And yes, Shami, that would sort the elevations once and for all.)

On the screen, he adjusted the positioning of two spatial volumes to overlap. The central atrium would be the point where the two floors came together. Each incremental shift in their placement on the slope gave a different set of possibilities: the extent of the cantilever, the trade-off between load-bearing and floating, the ratio of structural glass to weathered steel that hit the sweet-spot proportions of inside versus outside. All that to optimise, plus the added challenges of keeping a low profile against the landscape, and clearance for the trees.

It was absorbing work to step through the variations and possibilities. The bold outlines had been clear to him for months, even if the very idea of a house had seeped into his consciousness slowly. A quiet trickle, until one day he looked down to see he was knee-deep in the notion of it. (This house. Their house.)

From the first inkling, there had always been an atrium, always in his mind’s eye a double-storeyed amalgamation of the bookshop’s circular oculus and his own light-filled top floor. Hybrid, and perfect.

Simple (if he wanted) to picture some favourite structure from human history and bring it into being from base firmament. A bit of an effort required—might need a good lie-down afterwards—but ultimately he’d discarded that approach. He felt an unusual pull to the act of material creation, to careful planning, to staking a complete claim on his precious piece of land. 

What would that oak beam afford if he used it? Limitations were best for creativity: you could solve for _x_ when you knew a variable in an equation. He tapped the length and width into the proportions, and hoisted the virtual timber upright onscreen, loading it with as much of the cantilever’s weight as it could take. Success: it was massive enough to reach the height he wanted, to let light pour in with just a rough illusion of a roof. And the trusses...they would do nicely for parquet if the provenance was as he suspected. Now the witch was in for the day he could ask for an account of the research he’d detailed off to her. 

For a time he swiped through pictures on his phone: the Birmingham library that had so taken Aziraphale’s fancy, the engineering details of an underground chapel in France, some sketches he’d nicked off Leonardo that would do nicely for his twenty-first century design. All of it ignoring the fact he couldn’t quite figure the arrangement of rooms. Were there even going to be rooms? He’d designed star systems, why was this such a trial? 

What had he said to the angel? Aesthetics over calculus, smash and whirl? 

Ha.

He gestured his notebook open and set the drawings to arrange themselves in the air where he could get a proper look at his progress. Maybe art that morning, after all.

Coffee arrived around eleven.

“Hey, Crowley.” 

Anathema leaned against the doorway until he grunted an invitation. Coming into the workroom, she handed him a mug of coffee, black as petrol and in a white mug with angel wings. He liked a human who learned fast.

He downed half of it, then folded his arms over the back of his chair, twisting in it to regard her properly. “Good trip.” It didn’t need to be a question; no doubt Aziraphale had blessed her holiday travels to the point where her suitcases could have flown themselves.

“Ooh, we do small talk now?”

“Apparently so.”

“Yeah, it was fine.” She settled onto a stool and spun around. 

“And you’re back.” He hadn’t been sure that she would return once an ocean away from angelic encouragement, but caged birds were always tentative about an open door. 

“Apparently so,” she echoed.

He sipped his coffee until she started poking at the sketches hanging in mid-air with a skeptical-yet-fascinated expression.

“Why do you have blank sheets of paper flying about? And _how_ are they flying?”

“They’re not blank, I’m keeping you from seeing what’s on them. And they’re flying because I wanted them to.”

She accepted this with barely a blink, though Crowley’s well-honed senses picked up a healthy dose of envy. No surprises there; humans with occult pretensions always did get discomfited around the real thing. What _was_ surprising was how quickly the flash of jealousy faded to be replaced by genuine curiosity.

He watched her try to take one of the floating sketches—the curve of the branches, the sweep of the roof, the distant river—but the paper was stiff as steel, the air as solid as stone. The look she gave him was incredulous, and pure delight. 

“This is pretty cool,” she told him. Ducking underneath the papers, she craned her neck upwards to see from a different angle.

So much of what had happened in Tadfield would have faded from her human brain, or happened at the hinterlands of her comprehension, it was no wonder she was staring.

She sat down on the floor, her black skirt puffing up around her, her boots crossing at the ankle. “The fascinating part is how you’re doing it. I mean, what you’re describing is basically just intent, right? No spells, no potions, symbols or chanting or chalk—” 

He snapped the papers back to his notebook. “You want to try?” The thinnest thread of temptation twisted its way through his words. 

If she was aware of the implications of the question—and how much a bargain like that might cost—she gave no sign. “Intent as an embodied way of describing physical laws like force?” She stood, shaking out her skirt, shaking off his insidious nudge.

Crowley drained the rest of his coffee. A purer soul than he’d thought, susceptible to magic tricks, _and_ curious about their mechanisms. He could see why Aziraphale wanted to get his greedy paws on her, and he’d had absolutely no qualms about taking advantage in said angel’s absence.

“Tell me about my little research commission.”

She leaned, conspiratorial, against the workbench. “So...you were right. Shipwreck. They’re definitely taken from the _Grace Dieu_. Probably a mast but I don’t do boat-speak so I can’t tell you which one.”

“Excellent. Thanks, Device, nice job.”

She looked pleased. “No problem. Royalty, huh?”

“Ugh, don’t get too excited. Aziraphale was friends with Henry’s French wife. But the ship was damn impressive.” And it had been—largest of its kind, entire oak forests cleared for the timbers, the grand stretch of time written through the grains of the beams ignominiously propping up the roof of a twee Sussex cottage. 

Crowley opened up his email and jotted a note to Shami to offer again. Another ten grand should loosen the owner’s scruples. And if it didn’t, the garden would find itself with the kind of serious Japanese knotweed infestation that would send the owners scrambling to accept any offer. The majesty of those long-gone oak trees deserved liberation. By the time he looked up again, Anathema was heading out the door.

“Don’t let me stop you if you’re working on Nutter,” he offered, feeling generous enough to share space.

“Thanks, but I feel like reading today. A whole section of old periodicals opened up on the weekend. Thought I might explore.”

“Sounds dusty. I’ll be up on the roof pruning the roses.”

“Valentine’s Day?”

_Humans._ At least the flowers wouldn’t talk back.

Or rather, the roses didn’t, but the early blooming camellia was shouting joyously to the skies when Crowley stopped to take a look. The decadent spill of cream against deeply glossy leaves lit up an otherwise miserable winter midday.

“Aren’t you winsome,” he told the potted bush. “I’m not impressed, I’ve been around forever. Seen prettier.” He caressed the edge of a petal.

There was a honey-tinge to the hue that reminded him of Aziraphale’s favourite coat. Since he hadn’t done the planting, he assumed the resemblance was not so much coincidence as ethereal design. He’d seen him wear boutonnieres before. Crowley liked the idea: that Aziraphale’s edible garden of sweet fruit and savoury flavour could also provide a colour-coordinated tea plant for his lapel.

That was, if he’d still been wearing the coat. Crowley hadn’t seen it again since that night at the Ritz, after _he’d_ worn it through hellfire and Heaven’s worst. Aziraphale had worn it, and its close cousins, solidly for over a century and a half. Then suddenly, with the world their own, he shed the coat’s cocoon and spread his sartorial wings. 

Again.

Because Aziraphale had once loved clothes. He’d kept to the soft-toned caramels and ecrus, but the mix of fine fabrics and fits had long proclaimed him a dandy. He’d gone from bare feet to platform sandals to Louis heels; from chitons to tunics to redingote. Moments of true excess: satin, or jacquard, and on occasion, only his own plush skin.

Then too much time with that wretched Beau Brummel, and later, a bleaker set of decades without proper demonic influence, and it was too late to shake him from the prim capsule wardrobe that had defined his workwear through to the Apocalypse.

But not beyond. Now it was all Jermyn Street jumpers, thanks very much. Colourful woollen hats, and that fucking _delightful_ Paddington coat.

The camellia flowers swayed in a gust of wind. On impulse, he channeled the last of his January itch into a tiny bubble of time. His chosen blossom froze on the bush, stuck at the height of perfection.

He went back downstairs, thinking of fashion.

Anathema was on the shop floor under the oculus in one of the arm-chairs, leafing through a brittle-paged journal. He glanced at what had her so engrossed: _Fortnightly Review_ , an issue from July 1901.

“HG Wells,” she said absently, turning the page. “Sorry—did you need something?”

Oh, this was _very_ interesting. He’d not personally had a hand in any inspiration for _Anticipations_ but he knew exactly what she had there. It was a credit to her strength that she’d managed to force the bookshop to let her find it in the first place. Perhaps Aziraphale’s plans for her weren’t quite so firm after all.

It would be fun to find out.

“Fashion Week’s starting soon,” he told her. “Front row; horrendous people; opportunity to be more fabulous than anyone else because you’ll be wearing whatever you want. Yes?”

Obviously yes. 

* * *

As promised, front row, and the gleaming marble floors of the British Fashion Council reflecting their fabulousness up at them. Anathema went maximalist in a black and white star-patterned dress, silver duvet coat too rococo to take off even as the runway lights shone hot. His suede coat and slouchy trousers were the optimum redhead-flattering shade of pond-scum green. The camellia sat plump and creamy on his lapel, protected in its bubble from browning at the edges. 

“Space bling,” she admired, as they watched a model in a metallic foil hoodie slouch down the catwalk. “Love the street-style shows.”

At the population level, Crowley didn’t find adult humans as stimulating as Aziraphale did, but Anathema kept proving herself an acceptable individual. Today, for instance, she was letting some of the rich-as-fuck Malibu Beach It-girl out, and it suited her. But so had the cashmere and pearls, and the Victoriana-by-way-of-Westwood occultist capes. Costumes for each variation of her person; all different nodes, yes, but part of the same evolutionary branch. It had taken him and Aziraphale at least a few centuries, likely more, to get a handle on how to pull off that trick. She’d got there in a few decades.

He could feel a new certainty about her, too, that was upping the ante on her choices. In the champagne-heavy milling about between one show and the next, she commented, “Agnes wasn’t really one for fashion advice, but.” She directed his eye to a retro jean jacket over a stonewash boilersuit on a butch individual who was accessorising the look with a glare. “She did give my Dad a helping hand in the eighties though. Told him to do that sort of thing,” a nod to the double denim, “if he wanted to get a girlfriend.”

Crowley had seen some of those verses. “Gotta know how she managed that one.”

Her gaze went unfocussed, as if accessing the text on some internal index cards. “ _When Our Lady Gloveth in Lace sings how ye muste proveth your love_ —that was Madonna, obviously.”

He nodded.

“— _mark heed myne kin of the Valley_ —”

“LA?”

“Nope, my Dad’s name is Glen, although Grandma reckoned that the prophecy was for her for a long time, which I think was her way of telling us all that she swung both ways, but anyhow. _Mark heed that ye might catch the eye of your fayre maid if ye twyce over donneth the indigo Serge washed in Hephasteus’s outpouring_. Pumice stone, that took a while.”

He gave her a long look. “Did you make that one up?”

She wrinkled a grin. “I _wish_ I had. They’re not easy to invent on the spot even if you’ve spent all your life steeped in the Device style.”

“Speaking of the Device style, HG Wells?” 

Since he’d caught her paging through those predictions about technological change, he’d wondered if the angel’s historically-focused career guidance might have only a tenuous hold on her. She was part-timing it at one of the auction houses but she enthused more about the trends in purchasing rather than the provenance and discovery of antiquities. Her interests in the bookshop weren’t like the students who came in rhapsodizing about the smell of rare, old books like it was something magical and not just the acid hydrolysis of lignin. Rather, she’d sniffed beyond the benzaldehyde to appreciate the unique constellation of human knowledge that Aziraphale had accumulated, and knew there was something more to be wrested from it in the aggregate.

“What, oh, _Anticipations_?” They moved through from the main space into one of the smaller studios, where a seriously clever 3D lace-making demonstration was starting. 

Fishing out her phone to scan a QR code, she tapped the screen absently with a short fingernail. “I was looking backward for the wrong reason. Thought the answers were in the past only because I was tired of knowing my own future. But it doesn’t mean prediction is a bad thing altogether, right?”

He was quite taken by the lace, half a mind on how sumptuous a sweep of it would cast against concrete, but he turned back to confirm his understanding. 

“Nutter in the twenty-first century, eh. Futurology?” 

“Better me, a trained historian, than some techbro.”

“Watch it. Techbros are some of my best work this millennia so far.”

She gave him what felt like a well-crafted facsimile of his own skeptical look, but he had countless lifetimes more experience at inscrutability. 

“Fashion?” For a start, perhaps, but he sensed her ambitions were broader.

“No. A bit. Leisure, I think.” She waved a hand in the air. “I come from a long line of hobbyists. When your ancestors make good investments down the centuries you have the free time for learning the trombone and birdwatching. I reckon I can do better than stand-up paddleboarding and the return of macrame.”

“Well, I’m into this lace,” he decided, twirling a finger at the samples on the wall then in her direction. 

Puzzled, she patted her hair, which was now bound up in a snood in the same silver as her coat and in a geometric design that reminded him of filigree lamplight. He’d take a proper look later and decide whether the manufacturer might need to decline all their other commissions. 

They returned to their seats, refilled. Anathema sipped a complex botanical concoction, and he had a nice low buzz from the nexus of insecurity and vanity in the area. Next to them, a group of couture editors all in black (really? Even he, your actual demon, didn’t monochrome it all the time) tried to take surreptitious pictures of the celebrity family across the catwalk. In the other direction, Crowley nodded acknowledgement to one of his Mayfair neighbours, dressed in razor-sharp cream suiting like she was off to address the UN. A dapper older couple blatantly checked out the young people in the room. Plus ça change.

Anathema noted the preponderance of wide belts, smugness radiating as she pointed out she’d adopted the cummerbund two years ago.

“Knee-length skirts, too,” she said, as he vaguely considered a hemline alteration on his next outfit. 

He tipped his glasses down to grin at her. “Aziraphale really thought he’d got himself a trainee antiquarian. He’s going to be so disappointed.”

“Lolz. I did tell him I wasn’t going to be his shopgirl.” Her tone was gleeful, but as music started up he could feel a wave of anxiety from her. “He was a bit curt with me when I turned down that postdoc.”

“Eh. Aziraphale’s appreciation for an academic career is half a century out of date. My lot stuck their oar in the university sector and it’s not the life of the mind it was when he last donned a gown. Good swerve, I say.”

He leaned forward as a riot of peach-coloured flowers fell from the rafters, marking the borders of the catwalk. Nice. Maybe one of the models would trip.

Anathema’s tension was still palpable.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “AZ’s lovely. But he’s also terrifying? And I think he makes people do things and he doesn’t even realise.”

Or ask, Crowley thought fondly, with a noncommittal noise.

She leaned in as the lights dimmed, a gleam in her eye. “Wait, can I just blame you for the swerve?”

Cheeky. “You’d rather the ire of Hell than Heaven?”

“Uh, in this case, yeah.”

As the models strode past, he felt her apprehension ease off, replaced by a focused relish of the colours and shapes in front of them. 

Yellow fabrics, technical and shiny for autumn; a deconstructed cape of the future, paired with a ballooning red silk skirt and blocky orange boots that made Anathema’s heels twitch with involuntary interest.

“Look at that, like a rain poncho you could wear to the Met Ball. It’s so colourful! Reminds me of the little girl from Tadfield. What was her name? Pepper?” She didn’t take her eyes off the model as she continued, “AZ asked me not to go back to Tadfield. Will you go back? Is Adam—?”

“Safe? He’s a boy. Saved the world by being nothing but a boy. Life happens; he’ll forget soon enough that he ever made a choice about who he was. He’ll grow. The little magicks will be background noise; it’s the big stuff we don’t want him to remember. It’s safe so long as we don’t remind him there could be more.” 

He put the inclusive emphasis on _we_.

With a snap, he swapped his coat for a blatantly evil sweater from the last show. Fine silk, a deviously complex Fair Isle, in dark grey and black with a hood. Maybe robots had made it because no human could knit that without going blind.

Anathema looked wistful, but he already had her number sorted, with the fiery parachute cape and a floor-length pink skirt. Eye-bleeding in its own way.

She beamed. “Where next? That Korean guy?”

He scrolled through the schedule as they came out onto the Strand, where the Bentley had nudged her way into a reserved space.

“Ugh, love the designer, hate the venue. Spent too much time there in the 1700s.”

The Great Hall at Gray’s probably still smelled of turnips. Still, at least it wasn’t a sterile stripped-back factory space in East London or the tedious brickwork of something described as “under the arches”. He picked the Rocha show out at the Cutty Sark: sure, it was a schlep out to Greenwich, but then you were sitting underneath a suspended tea clipper watching rich people lust after beautiful things. 

They were settling in the shadow of the great ship’s copper hull when Crowley’s phone rang.

Anathema laughed as she caught sight of the screen. “You use the angel emoji for AZ? Heart eyes.”

He raised his eyebrows at her over his sunglasses (though the effect was probably ruined by his own, _fuck_ , heart eyes) and lifted the phone to his ear. “Angel. Alright?”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale’s voice was tight. 

He immediately tensed. 

“The event we agreed on,” Aziraphale continued.

Crowley hissed, and beside him, Anathema jerked away from where she’d been leaning in. “ _Owww_ , electric shock.”

Ignoring her, he demanded, “Okay, hit me up. What are the options?”

He knew what _his_ options were. The day out had provided enough human acrimony sizzling on the burner that he could handle a dash through the transponders and anything else required once he got there. 

“Option A,” said Aziraphale. “I skip all thoughts of pudding, pay my bill and drive on.”

The angel sounded calmer now, and almost like he was beginning to enjoy himself. Crowley’s tension eased. “Hmm, seems unlikely.”

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it? Option B, then. I order. The gentleman across the way calls his wife a name I won’t repeat. The lorry driver in the striped shirt stabs his friend through the hand with a fork. It escalates, and I lose my appetite.”

_Definitely_ enjoying himself. He loved it when the angel went a little feral. 

Anathema made an urgent, questioning sound beside him. He waved her distraction away. “Aziraphale,” he said with growing amusement, “Are you actually keeping your promise not to engage by yourself?”

“Oh, do try not to sound so smug about it. You know full well options C through E would involve a level of interference that I’d need to consult on.”

Crowley scoffed. One well-meaning “You’re an angel. I don’t think you _can_ do anything wrong” on a summer’s afternoon at the beginning of recorded time and said angel hadn’t bothered to consult on anything ever again.

Through the phone, the other demon’s complaints came like a high-pitched, mosquito-whine. 

“Option F,” he heard Aziraphale say to her in response, “is Fuck Right Off, and I smite you out of Earthly existence.”

Crowley grinned down the phone. “Sounds like you’ve got this covered.” He let the power he’d held at the ready dissipate; heard Anathema yelp as it sent out more sparks.

“Yes, I rather think I do. Speak soon, my dear.” 

“That was _not_ a ‘Miss you, babe’ sort of catchup.” Anathema said when he’d lowered the phone. “Was it—?”

She knew, of course, about Sereniel (had _50 Shades of Grey_ and _Eat Pray Love_ ready next to the register on the off chance) and she knew enough to watch her step in case the matching demon came to call.

He didn’t need to insult her with a long explanation or a cosseting. “Yup.”

_“The show will begin in two minutes.”_

“Do you need to go to him?”

He rolled his shoulders. “Do you think I should?” he asked, curious for her reply.

She stared ahead, at the empty catwalk, not quite meeting his eyes. “I think if Aziraphale couldn’t handle it by himself, we’d all be in trouble.”

Crowley’s nerves lit up again at the sudden taste of her human fear on the air. He twitched, tried to turn it casual, like he wasn’t actually a black-and-red scaled predator in a crowd of little rabbits. He cleared his throat. “I’m going to have to check in. You watch out for the next big thing. Meet you after.”

He slung himself onto his feet just as the lights started to go down, leaving annoyed whispers in his wake. Once he was outside by the water, he roughly cast out his attention. He’d always had a general sense of where the angel was in this dimension, and he could feel the hot-crackle edges of him safe to the west. Crowley blinked away the flashing black spots against his vision—Aziraphale shone bright as the sun in the vacuum of space—and let himself feel the relief he hadn’t wanted to show in company.

His phone buzzed.

_No casualties. We had rather a nice chat in the end._

_Not a fan of yours, though I did advocate for your more admirable qualities._

_look at you_ , _principality_ , he wrote back. _not a dither in sight_

_It feels good_ , Aziraphale replied, _to defend what’s mine._

Crowley, though he would _never_ admit this to the witch, went for the heart-eyes.

One more show at Billingsgate and Anathema’s newfound hankering for the next and shiniest started to wane.

“Wine o’clock then,” he said, and marched them up to the Sky Garden’s VIP lift. After the call from Aziraphale he wanted the towering vista over the City, some placebo sense of keeping a lookout.

As the lift sped upwards, she peered in the mirror and tugged critically at the high neck on her dress. “Can this go? And these?”

He snorted as she waggled her slouchy boots at him. “Don’t get too used to this,” he warned, refiguring the neckline and swapping in some questionable sandals she’d cooed over earlier in the day. She was right, though, it was time for something more eye-catching. 

“Niiiice.” Anathema took an appreciative once-over at his reflection. He hadn’t worn this kilt and boots combination since the nineties when Lee had made it popular. A sharp grey herringbone jacket from one of the shows topped it off.

“Hemline meet with your approval?” 

“I genuinely need hard liquor before I can deal with your knees,” she said. 

“What was that language you and AZ were speaking?” 

“Eh?” The atrium was massive, but there were upwards of four hundred fashion industry types drinking, complimenting, and bitching around them. It was hard to hear over the din. Models with the day’s hairspray still hard at work against gravity suddenly felt the urge to queue up at the bar, allowing him to commandeer their sofa. Better. At slouching height you could carry on a conversation.

“Language. I thought it was Welsh for a bit.”

He threw back a genuine laugh. He’d been tossing up whether to deflect the enquiry but the comparison tickled him so much that he gave her the name of the language.

Her face went through several expressions until she stuck her little finger in her ear and jostled it about.

“That won’t help,” he said, lifting his glass. “Cheers, by the way.”

“Yeah, sure. Old, then. Is it The Word or something?” She made air quotes.

“A later branch. Aziraphale’s dialect is a fancy register, bit archaic if you ask me, but I’m sure that comes as no surprise.” He hummed. “Didn’t notice he’d slipped us into it, to be honest. Maybe it was some sort of intimidation tactic for the new demon’s benefit.”

“He doesn’t intimidate you.”

Oh, how valiantly she fought to keep the question mark out of that statement. He tapped his wine glass. “Literally our first drink, maybe rethink your approach?”

Not to be daunted, she slugged back her piña colada and turned around. One of the catering staff gave her a long look, then put down his tray to walk over their way, clearly confused why he was happy to take an order for two bottles of wine instead of handing around vegan finger food.

“Was that you?” she turned back to ask.

It was a little bit, but she’d also made a fair stab at it, and he always enjoyed a human using their Intent in the pursuit of intoxicating substances. It was like watching a spider spin a web, oblivious to the beauty of geometry and the tensile strength of silk, just driven by the need for lunch.

“Mostly you.”

“Liar.”

“Demon, yeah.”

The wine came along, and the space crammed in another wave of studied glamour. This time the fashionistas were accompanied by financiers from the City below. The mood shifted; the barely-adult beauty crowd descended away to less salubrious, more underground happenings. Investors circulated, and blatant flattery made way for barbed criticism: does she have more than one collection in her, how will it do in SW1 and Wangfujing, is there diffusion potential. The tension was as good as the Tempranillo.

Eavesdropping on the conversations around them, Anathema offered her own views on the success of this line or that trend. 

“Got it from going to auctions with AZ,” she explained, interjecting in Crowley’s own commentary on an imbroglio by the bar. “Always be judging. Well, he says ‘Always keep evaluating’ but then he’s posh.”

There was a note in her voice that made him dip into what other emotions tempered her terror and admiration. Beneath the surface bravado, he could see the traces of Aziraphale’s grace that had wormed into her everyday human feelings: gratitude became deference, regard became awe, affection transmuted into hunger. 

“You’re not his first human, witch. Don’t get too comfortable.” Right at that moment he wasn’t sure for whose benefit he was warning her off. 

She held up her hands in the universal signal of knowing where one’s chalk circle was drawn, but as ever, her curiosity won out.

“What happened to the others? His humans?”

“What do you think happened?”

She took a long sip of her drink, scanned the room.

“They died, but that’s because that’s what we do. We all get old, or sick, and we die. And they did.” She returned his smile with interest, thin-lipped but genuine. “Don’t worry, I mean, he’s great, but I wasn’t lying when I said I was terrified of him.”

He looked at her expectantly. He had an ego, after all.

“Yes, I’m scared of you too. Less scared now I’ve seen your knees.”

“Nothing wrong with my knees.” He crossed them to make the point.

“It’s just that you have them at all. There’s nothing otherworldly about knees.” 

She tapped fingers on the pleats of his kilt, changing the subject. “Hey, what happened to McQueen? What do you guys call it...upstairs or downstairs?”

He’d never answered this for any human and he wasn’t about to start now. “Long queue. Probably still in processing.” 

She took the hint and took her hand off his thigh.

They moved on to the safe topic of her sex life.

“Since that boy with the ridiculous car?” 

“Oh man, trust you to notice the car.”

“What else was there to notice—oh, right.”

She’d made some length and girth motions with her hands, a little unsteadily now she was floating three glasses of red on top of the cocktails.

He made a face to indicate he was only moderately impressed. 

“You should get Aziraphale to show you the life modelling he did in the fifties.”

She barely stopped a splutter. “He did not.”

“In the Tate archives. I don’t know if he knows I know, but if he didn’t want me to know he shouldn’t have been so stupid as to let something be stored in a major national gallery.”

She contemplated. “You ever send him nudes in return?” 

Well, that was one interpretation of the situation. He settled on, “You don’t really need the reminder after a few thousand years. We’re talking about a being whose barely changed his side-parting since the animals went in two by two.”

“Yeah but _you_ have. You’ve had three different hairstyles and a week of flexible gender and I’ve only known you a year. He must wonder who he’s coming home to.”

Ugh. If she had any idea exactly who it was out there patching up their memories and re-making themself—clue, it was not Crowley. If she had any idea who was actually wondering, and about what—nope, another drink needed before those thoughts could be chased down properly. That was the problem with human-level conversation; it involved concepts like _home_. That there were persons embodying the same. Concepts that should have zero meaning for any eternal being, but hey-ho, here he was trying to decide whether his favourite angel would like lace drapery.

“In the fundamentals,” he said firmly, lolling back on the couch to satisfy the curiosity of the be-suited gent across from him (nothing is the answer you’re looking for, sir, nothing), “in the fundamentals, there is very little change just because one changes style—oi, stop that.”

She was back on the length and girth gesturing, giggling with a questioning expression and mouthing “fundamentals?” 

He topped up his own glass and hovered pointedly over her own until she stopped laughing and turned a thoughtful eye on him. 

“So, you’ve been a woman?”

“Yes, as you’ve noted.”

“Has AZ been a woman?”

“Yes.”

“Have you shagged women?”

“Yes. And men too. But you’re American, say ‘fucked’ like you were made to.”

“Has AZ fucked women?”

He was positive that the angel had never considered the bestowing of comfort (with a side of ecstacy) in those terms, but. “Yes.”

“Really? And—?”

He laughed. “Yes. And yes.”

“This is amazing. I could go all night. If I asked you about things you’d done, would the answer be yes to all of them?”

“If you’d been around for a thousand human lifetimes, you too would make it a point of pride to tick a few things off. Please don’t go on all night, that’d be tedious.”

“But I can go on a little bit?” She leaned forward, wine sloshing, eyes sparkling. “Have you two…?”

“Yes,” Crowley told her preemptively.

“You have?”

“Yep.” 

“Oh wow. Recently?”

Did he want to talk about this? “Your reckoning or mine?” 

She took a hefty glug of wine. “Um, mine. On your timescale it’s obvious now I think about it.”

“Full disclosure, I might make you forget about this conversation. Haven’t decided.”

“Would I know you’d done that to me?”

“Not an inkling. And it bloody well is _not_ obvious.”

She picked up his phone from the table, turned it over, laughing. His last text to Aziraphale was still visible. 

“Even though I am a bit drunk I am wisely not going to make any remarks because I want to remember this all the days of my life.”

Crowley pocketed the phone. “Remember you think I’m terrifying too.”

She gave him a long look. It might have been insightful, but it was probably just the over-focussed gaze of the slide into inebriation. “But you two aren’t...you’re not, now?”

“Not for a while, by your reckoning or ours.”

The look softened. “Surely—”

“Device.”

She set down her wine glass. “Look, here’s the thing, right? From what I’ve learned so far, forecasting is all about understanding the past then scanning the horizon. You can build likely scenarios, but to do that you’ve got to put yourself at your goal. Do some visioning to picture the most desirable future.”

“And you asked me what language _I_ was speaking.”

“No, seriously, Crowley. Know what you want, and use everything you’ve got to go after it.”

He stared at her, then shook his head, scoffing. “I thought you were going to make millions on marketing trendy leisure activities, not turn half-baked agony aunt.”

“I’m a Nutter, and a Device,” she told him, with the confident dignity of a woman both very soused and having a very good time. “I’ll do as I damn well please.”

* * *

The angel never had much of a problem maneuvering past the epic clutter of the bookshop’s basement storage room. Why should he? He adored that clutter, and it worshipped him back. Crowley? He counted himself lucky he could see in infrared and was possessed of a spine that more often than not forgot it wasn’t fully articulated. 

Twisting and weaving past the crates and stacks, he paused by the trapdoor. Invisible to human intruders, it was ablaze with protections to deter any meddlers of celestial or infernal persuasion. And it led absolutely nowhere but to a nasty headache. The stage magician’s chest in the corner, on the other hand, with its false bottom...

The lights came up as Crowley closed the lid after himself and stepped off the ladder. Not too bright on this floor, of course. You could never be too careful with the wine if you were an eternal enthusiast preserving the best of fermentation that humans had to offer.

(“ _And_ I’ve put in a few racks to lay down my collection,” Aziraphale had said proudly on Crowley’s first tour of the shop, beaming with contented ownership.

More than a few racks, Crowley had remarked, ambling about the two cellar floors the angel had shown him, one three-quarters full of wine and liquor and another a jumble of stacks of trunks, crates, and a marble chest that he vaguely remembered from Alexandria.

“Room to expand,” came the response, “and I had a few storage crates here and there. Opportunity to consolidate.”

Crowley had seen his own opportunity, one that involved capitalising on a connoisseur’s greed. “I might have a stash or two of my own to consolidate,” he’d tempted, going on to describe a few choice vintages.

“Of course, my dear fellow! I think we’ve a good hundred feet or more before we hit the water table.”)

In due course, the storage codicil to their Arrangement had necessitated the digging of another three floors—and quite a bit out under the neighbouring properties—but once tunnelling started on what was to become the Northern Line tube a degree of structural engineering had to be taken into account.

The rumble of the underground trains might not have been perceptible to a human, but Crowley found it distracting. He shuffled through a pile of records left by the gramophone and slipped a big band album from the fifties onto the turntable.

“You’ll get to bebop yet,” he murmured, setting the needle on the record and turning up the volume.

They’d already assembled a significant oenophile’s cellar by the time they’d centralised their various collections, and then in the last decade Aziraphale had taken climate change very seriously. Drought will be the downfall of Burgundy and Douro, he shook his head, blithely ordering six cases of a favourite and keeping an eye on emerging vintners in Poland. Crowley was simultaneously impressed at the angel playing a long game, and still in horrified awe that after six thousand years Aziraphale adhered to God’s neutrality. But ineffable wine tasted as good as any other, so.

And that was what he was down here for: an ineffable vintage, a long-ago tipple to serve up as a watery offering on the South Downs foundations. In a dim corner of exposed London clay, a Georgian _kvevri_ sat half-buried alongside a few younger Egyptian and Phoenician amphorae. He stood musing on which one was the most appropriate talisman while also the least of a quaffing loss, and had his phone in his hand to text Aziraphale before remembering he’d then have to explain _why_. And the time wasn’t right, for any number of separate and well-rehearsed reasons. 

  * _Reason one:_ Despite Anathema’s encouragement to “vision his goal” (Satan help him), it didn’t change the fact that Aziraphale had his own shit going on, and
    * _Subreason one alpha_ , the meet-and-greet Principality’s walkabout seemed to be making him genuinely happy, which was the state of being that suited him best, and so it suited Crowley best.
  * _Reason two:_ Crowley knew and/or had been there for some of the events that Aziraphale had chosen to put away. While Aziraphale hadn’t yet so far had a problem with it, surely it was just a matter of time until an angry (or worse, disappointed), ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
    * _Subreason two alpha_ , that might also be his response to “Surprise, angel, I made us a country home!”
    * _Subreason two beta_ , Crowley didn’t know everything, right? Some of the angel’s secrets were probably secrets because Aziraphale _wanted_ them to be secret. 
    * _Subreason two gamma_ , and if Aziraphale rediscovered a secret and it turned out that he’d been mad at Crowley then he’d be mad at Crowley again. There were definitely some colourful stand-up rows when they’d been ironing out the Arrangement, _and_ there was the debacle of the nineteenth century.



Best not to dwell; come what may and all that. 

He decided on the _kvevri_ , and took the staircase that descended alongside the exposed rock. In the wall, the fossil of a woolly mammoth was half-visible. Sunk in the mud as the ice-sheets retreated, Crowley reckoned. Slung over one of the protruding tusks was a silk scarf, on inspection matching the white tie Aziraphale had worn to Glyndebourne. He slipped it around his neck. It smelled like grass and armagnac, faintly of gardenia, reassuringly of affection.

Third level, passing over the extensive shelves of sheet music, a joint collection of rare recordings, and carefully-packed instruments. He knew better than to poke about and collapse a fret on a viola (it had only happened once, but wow, was he never going to hear the end of that). A felt-lined box was open, and he peered in to see a bundle of primitive flutes, some carved from swan’s bones, some from mammoth ivory, and a few fashioned from wood. He lifted out an ocarina, an ovoid of baked clay that fit nicely in his palm, and blew.

The warm, resonant notes filled the cellar and blended with the walking bass line from the jazz record. The clay was dark grey, incised with a dragon whose claws and wings circled each of the holes, blood jasper chips for eyes. 

(He’d picked it up in a Silk Road market in Xinjiang, already antique, and suffered the indignity of the angel being much more adept at making music from the damn thing.

“Might be your, uh,” Aziraphale poked out his tongue, pink and indecent.

“Ridiculousss.” Though he’d never been able to get the same primordial tonality from the damned thing.) 

But it was Air, and it was shared, and that was the important thing. He conjured up a box, and in went the ocarina.

Games filled another set of shelves. He plucked down a mancala board and popped it in as well. A future tourney. A backgammon cup had fallen to the floor. He bent to retrieve it, tucking it next to a carved-bone set of hounds and jackals.

“Think I nicked that from Neffie—oooh, well done _you_.” With some glee, he noticed the four little ivory chess pieces. The National Museum of Scotland would wail into their whisky if they knew those were sitting in a Soho bookseller’s private collection. 

Further on, past box files stuffed with Aziraphale’s ever-increasing stash of recipes wheedled from famous chefs. A beautiful cherrywood cabinet set against one wall held dozens of small drawers with ingredients that were medicinal as well as culinary. Here and there he could feel shimmering films of preservation against decay, most of them Aziraphale’s, a few his own. Labels in neat script told provenance and notes on use. A row held ancient combs of honey, one labelled only with a picture of a rhododendron. Mad honey, then, from bees that pollinated flowers full of neurotoxins. _Solnitsata,_ on a drawer full of salt, the label faded and re-inscribed many times. 

Hmm. Wine for Water. A flute for Air. Would this salt, from the first time they’d ever seen humans produce it on a grand scale, do for Earth?

He stuck a finger in the drawer and lifted out a flake, let it dissolve on his tongue, considering. Aziraphale had raved about those Slovak brine kilns—well, he’d raved about the salted meat first and foremost, but eventually he’d got onto a description of chemical engineering and urban expansion that was intriguing enough to tempt Crowley a site visit. And he’d been right, the food was well tasty, even to his blunted demonic palate.

The salt would do for a first pass. There was something nicely symbolic anyhow, the fact that humans found salt so desirable that they once paid people with it, yet pour it on the ground and bam! There went your crops.

He poked about the drawers, ladled out a selection of other possibilities into stoppered jars for consideration. To his satisfaction, a pile of peppercorns wafted strong aromas as soon as the drawer was open, despite the label (his writing this time) proclaiming Malabar, 1733. The smell intensified as he rolled a corn between finger and thumb, ruminating both on how it might go if he negotiated a peppercorn rent with the angel, and the remainder of the Very Good Reasons he had for not yet sharing his plans:

  * _Reason three:_ The very nature of a Principality was to be Guardian of a Realm. Technically that was supposed to be Earth, but Aziraphale was not an ambitious creature, and of late his Realm had really just been the island of _Britannia major_ and wherever he could be arsed to go on his holidays. 
    * _Subreason three alpha_ , Aziraphale did sometimes get all sanctimonious about the land he considered his, and technically, Crowley had socked those little acres away and not told him. Oops.
    * _Subreason three beta_ , if there was anything that Armageddon had reminded him, it was that you never knew when your comfy routine would turn upside down. His land had always felt like a place of safety. Aziraphale was going through a bit of a tumultuous time; until he returned, why gamble on both things at the same time?



QED. Now was not the right time. The urge to talk to him, though—it felt like the worst of moulting. Feathers or scales, it didn’t matter. He found himself clawing with desire to shed the old, the worn-out. 

He wanted to tell Aziraphale: here I am, on our side, together.

_Come join me._

He sighed. All he could do was hope that Aziraphale’s journey would let them find the way. Dropping a handful of peppercorns into the box, he went to poke around the bottom floor. The consolations of art were always welcome.

“Oh for the love of—”

Crowley’s phone was lost somewhere amidst his collected loot, but it obligingly found its way to his hand when the ringing got too insistent to ignore. “Sorry, angel, down a cellar and up a ladder.”

He jammed the phone under his chin and grabbed the little brass casket he’d been reaching for. If he was right, he’d stowed his favourite altazimuth theodolite in there.

“You’re in the vaults.”

“Yup. Did you know there’s a Gentileschi tucked away? Which of us geniuses acquired that?”

“I have a question for you, if I may. Something to ask.”

Crowley, his attention half on the casket in his hands and fond thoughts of the elevations he’d soon be out measuring, nearly missed the change in the angel’s tone. But a pause strung out, edge-filled, and he caught up to the conversation. When Aziraphale still didn’t speak, he snapped at the gramophone to silence it. “Anything you need.”

“It’s a puzzle,” said Aziraphale, hesitant. “I’m putting all the pieces together but they don’t fit. There’s a gap, right in the middle.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Reason Two, beta, gamma, and all their unpredictable implications. _Exactly_ what he was worried about. Crowley trembled and the ladder was abruptly gone. He found himself on the floor, cradling the casket, the phone against his ear like a precious thing.

“I’m missing, _something_. Where is it, the one you’ve been worrying I’d find?”

Crowley sucked in a breath, sharp, but Aziraphale kept going, like he’d not been able to start but now he couldn’t stop.

“I didn’t mark it on my map. It’s not been misfiled in my shop. All I know is I can feel the shape of its absence, this missing piece, and I—”

Crowley believed in Aziraphale’s kindness, and he’d learned to get on without expectations of mercy from anyone. But he was hopeful, even as hope battled with fear, as they choked and overwhelmed. An angel who could feel love suffuse half the county of Oxfordshire would only be talking about one thing if he felt the shape of its absence.

“Tell me. Where can I find the memory I’ve lost? The memory about _us_.”

He couldn’t help the shocked, hurt laugh that punched out of him. So much for no direct questions. So much for all those carefully-listed _reasons_ for silence, stacked up like stones in a wall and crumbling now.

_Oh, Aziraphale._ Old bitterness, and stronger than that, old affection, made it difficult to think. He could lie, could offer up diversions, but he gave himself shuddering permission to let old hope bloom anew. 

“Chatsworth."

“I don’t remember being at Chatsworth with you,” Aziraphale’s voice was high and tight, his distress obvious. “When—when was that? Recently?” 

Crowley let the casket roll out of his grasp, necessary to grip the nape of his own neck and squeeze. Stop the bottom from dropping out. 

“Sssorry,” he said. “Need a minute.”

He buried his nose in the silk scarf. At the other end of the call, he heard distant birdsong, the rustle of wind.

He tried again. “Eighteen thirty-four.”

“Nearly two hundred years ago? That can’t be—?” Aziraphale broke off, before he burst out, “Two _centuries_ , Crowley?”

When Crowley didn’t answer immediately, Aziraphale continued, “Oh God. The nineteenth century. You were so angry with me. I didn’t know why we were estranged. It was never the same, and I—”

“I don’t know either.” He grimaced, instinctively baring his teeth against the ghost-memories. “But it doesn’t matter now.” Of that he was sure. “We’re here, aren’t we? A different pace, maybe, but we’re here.”

Crowley crouched there on the floor, looking up and through five floors of the detritus and treasures of their centuries. Perhaps, at first, this pooling of possessions had been a cheeky favour asked and granted, an opportunity to show off one’s taste and cleverness to the one they wished to impress. Then it had become a truth unacknowledged— _our team,_ with mutually assured defences. Over time, habit and trust.

He looked, and he saw not long-hoarded objects, but that trust.

“And we’ll go further, won’t we?” He pulled himself to his feet, and started to walk around the shelves. He touched reminders of the things they’d done together, and things they’d done apart, and all the ways in which he’d wanted, kept grasping for more.

And if it had all gone up in smoke and flame that day they stopped the end of the world, would it have mattered?

It wouldn’t have mattered. Because at the other end of the phone, Aziraphale breathed.

“I love you,” Crowley told him. 

He reached for his fear, but it wasn’t there. Warmth expanding instead in his chest; relief that wanted to fly free. He heard his own in-breath echoed.

“Carry that with you, angel, when you go.” He stopped, fumbling for the words. “And no matter what you remember there, remember that I love you. I always did. I do. I will, always. Promise me, Aziraphale? You’ll remember?”

He held onto the phone, held on to the hope.

“I—” The syllable cracked. Aziraphale cleared his throat. “I will. I’ll remember, darling. I will.”

### Authors' notes

**Alexander McQueen  
** [ Fashion designer extraordinaire ](https://www.frontrowedit.co.uk/7-of-the-best-alexander-mcqueen-shows/) of the 90s and 00s, Lee (Alexander) McQueen was a Mayfair resident on and off and we imagine there’s no way that he didn’t come to Crowley’s attention. Not least for his tightrope act balancing genius design and shock-value poor taste; what’s a demon not to love.

**_Anticipations_ ** **by HG Wells  
** To give the full title: [ _Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought_](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19229). In 1901, HG Wells wrote a [ series of articles ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticipations) describing how he thought rapid technological changes might affect human society through time; these were collated into the volume _Anticipations_ which became a pop-sci bestseller for the writer. Some of his predictions were remarkably spot-on, though not all, and one could make an argument that this is an early work of what now gets called “Futurology”.

**Casework that inspired** **_Bleak House  
_ ** See [Jarndyce v Jarndyce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarndyce_and_Jarndyce) for the full histories, both fictional and stranger than fiction. Crowley’s time at Gray's would have given him ample opportunity to really sink his teeth into some sordid family court.

**Crowley’s houseplants  
**Throughout this story Crowley uses Linnaean nomenclature rather than what humans confusedly deploy as common names. Five different species all called a “money tree” FFS. [_Musa basjoo_](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bb9sfcsHfLC/) is a banana species; [_Schlumbergera truncata_](https://www.instagram.com/p/B7J4VLyD7Rr/) is the Christmas-flowering cactus, and the trailing philodendron that he wraps around the twig crown is [_Philodendron micans._](https://www.instagram.com/p/B6WXD2YAuAL/) Every time Circe says there’s about enough gardens and plants in this story, Blythe considers that a challenge.

**_Grace Dieu  
_ ** A massive [wooden ship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Dieu_\(ship\)) built for Henry V, requiring nearly 4000 trees and only taken out for a single voyage before being laid up in a river on the south coast. On the question of whether the timbers subsequently were plundered for cottage beams the authors are agnostic but it’s amazing what you can tell with dendro-archaeological analyses these days.

**Gramophone, Big band record on the  
**At the time of this story, Aziraphale—who in our opinion has the same kind of keen connoisseur's relationship with music that Crowley does with art—is making his way very extensively through the jazz genre. We imagine him to have an encyclopaedic and up-to-date appreciation of what are broadly called ‘folk’ and ‘classical’ in the Western tradition; in the last couple of decades he swerved, rewound to ragtime, and is currently at about 1961. This chronological and completist approach to culture appreciation does Crowley’s head in, as might be imagined, but Crowley is a bit dim sometimes and misses the fact that Aziraphale also keeps up with what’s trending on Spotify. We thus interpret the famous “Oh, bebop” comment not as “Your Popular Musick With Which I, An Olde Fashioned Angel, Am Unacquainted” but rather as “Velvet Underground, really, how two thousand and late are you, have you heard Lizzo’s latest?”

Crowley puts [ The Atomic Mr Basie ](https://open.spotify.com/album/10l9GvNgkuRCNstbOgz2mG?si=z1aNVhrTSWKhxB-HA-mIpg) on to play.

**Japanese knotweed infestation  
** Of all the things a demon could threaten, [this](https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=218) is probably the most vicious.

**London Fashion Week  
** Picture Crowley wearing variations on this [ Qasimi ](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0813/2191/articles/Look_25.JPG?v=1546724931) look with these [ Hilx ](https://www.hilxeyewear.com/collections/dawn/) glasses. He then changes to his [ Cazal 664 sunnies ](https://www.cazal-eyewear.com/cazal-legends-664) / [ McQueen platform ankle boots ](https://www.farfetch.com/uk/shopping/men/alexander-mcqueen-platform-ankle-boots-item-13951005.aspx) / [ jacket from Stefan Cooke ](https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2020-menswear/stefan-cooke/slideshow/collection#20) / and [ this kilt](http://21stcenturykilts.com/product/7/cheviot-kilt). Meanwhile Anathema is variously wearing last year’s [ Erdem ](https://wp.erdem.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Look-26.jpg) / admiring [ DB Berdan ](https://dbberdan.com/products/dbxb-force-aliminum-foil-anorak-jacket) / and getting gifted something like this [ Roksanda ](https://roksanda.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/SS10C-Roksanda-0062_V2_copy_2.jpg) off the catwalk. They start off with two shows at the British Fashion Council HQ on the Strand, drive out to Greenwich for the Rocha show at the [ Cutty Sark](https://www.tagvenue.com/rooms/london/172/cutty-sark/the-dock), and they go on to the [ Sky Garden](https://www.tagvenue.com/rooms/london/14755/sky-garden-bars/exclusive-venue). Shout out to Circe’s mainlining of Netflix’s _Next in Fashion_ which meant this scene wasn’t boringly set in a bar.

**Mayfair neighbour  
** It’s Lady Ty, and if you don’t know who that is, do we have a [ book series ](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/BP9/rivers-of-london) for you.

**Peppercorn rent  
** In this context, literally a peppercorn paid as a [ceremonial rent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercorn_\(legal\)) to the owner of the land. 

**V Sagittae  
** [ Astronomy is ridiculously cool. ](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2229262-two-stars-colliding-in-2083-will-outshine-all-the-others-in-the-sky/)

**(In the) Vaults  
**Azirphale’s collection includes:

Rare wine, particularly as climate change will drastically alter [ what wine varieties can grow ](https://qz.com/quartzy/1108814/the-improbable-new-wine-countries-that-climate-change-is-creating/) in different regions / the mammoth (not collected _per se_ , just a lucky find) / [ Deli bal honey ](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/16/creating-a-buzz-turkish-beekeepers-risk-life-and-limb-to-make-mad-honey) that gets you high / 6000-year old salt from [ Solnitsaya ](https://provadia-solnitsata.com/en/) (Bulgaria), the oldest salt-production centre in Europe / board games, including his Little Robbers goatskin from Rome / the missing Lewis chessmen (so naughty) / the misprinted Bibles / Isaac’s handwritten _Principia_ / other books, manuscripts, letters etc (of course) / musical instruments and sheet music / Crowley’s probate ribbon and other hyper-personal souvenirs nicked across millennia / perfume and ingredients that are now banned / ugly statuary, mostly of putti and horses / map globes / his medical kit from the 1700s, with an apothecary box / blades / bolts of fabric and tapestries / a Jacquard loom and punchcards / manuscript illumination pigments / newspaper clippings and a writ deeming Crowley banned from Oxford (Aziraphale still finds that ban _hilarious_ ) / his snuff box collection / cricket gear, and team pictures from an Edwardian 1st XI (picture a handlebar moustache and a jaunty cap) / walking sticks and badges (from other pilgrimages) / wassailing cups and puzzle jugs / his [ Worshipful Society of Apothecaries ](https://wellcomecollection.org/works/a9bc353w/items?canvas=1) badge / Harry the Rabbit (stuffed) 

Crowley would have stashed: 

The sketch Pepys did for post-fire London / a Chinese [ earthquake detector ](https://www.kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/ancient-chinese-seismometer-used-dragons-toads/) / his signed copy of _The Wealth of Nations_ / two _[Semper augustus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania)_ bulbs / shares in the [ Pyramid General Cemetery Company ](http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2012/06/metropolitan_sepulchre.html) and the South Devon Railway Company’s jaunt into [ atmospheric rail](https://www.engadget.com/2018/11/12/brunel-atmospheric-railway-history/), but also, Apple / a crate containing the [ _Bristol Belle_ ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Belle) / Aziraphale’s opium pipe (but not anywhere the angel would find it) / spices from the Silk Road (shared with Az) / a [ Marianne Brandt teapot ](https://www.moma.org/collection/works/2438) / gold bullion (don’t ask how much) / his extensive and very high-tech seedbank (Crowley had also saved the grape varieties so perhaps he couldn’t throw stones) / [ Hounds and Jackals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounds_and_Jackals), a board game that originated in Ancient Egypt and Crowley borrowed his from Nefertiti / watches (so many watches) / Tradescant the Younger’s favourite trowel / a chunk of meteorite / paintings, not including those pieces kept in plain sight in galleries / a battered leather portfolio with all his original degree certificates / a pair of earrings Aziraphale gave her in the mid eighteenth-century / [ Audubon ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birds_of_America) / a two-storey rack of designer and historically important bicycles, including some that are very fast indeed

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 13

[Always Ascending](https://open.spotify.com/track/1by2yZWXqeTs4SRlBDsGov?si=9LleQTfkQEW3ntd17tdlfQ)  
Franz Ferdinand

[Good God Damn](https://open.spotify.com/track/2ZssXuZfktUr4MMDzEWD2Z?si=Ke7fmCDuSduc2qtrYi1AkQ)  
Arcade Fire

#### Perfume

[Concrete](https://www.comme-des-garcons-parfum.com/perfumes/concrete/), by Comme des Garçon  
At Fashion Week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/620268536894472192/planning-permission). In which she talks about curation, collection, and playing character dress-up.


	14. Chatsworth, 1834, Part I

Temptation smelled like waterlilies, fragrant and insidious to the senses.

Aziraphale passed through the enormous oak doors into the gallery, his steps quick and eager. In his breast pocket was a letter, well-folded. No greeting, simply the titles of several dozen plays listed in Crowley’s looping, backwards mirror-cursive. Each one lost, hard to find, or new and exciting. At the margin, an unfamiliar hand:

> _Our Mr Crowley tells me you’re a fellow collector. You are most welcome to come see what you can wrest away. — Devonshire._

An arrow in the original hand drew attention to the interloping note, a provocation of an exclamation point boldly sketched at its tail.

As though he’d needed that arrow to direct him here. Like a lodestone, he’d been drawn to where the fabric of the world draped heavier. The sightseers in the glorious parklands, the visitors to the grand house—they were awed by the edifice of riches on display, but those meant little to him. Here the colours were bright, and reality coalesced at its most vivid, because all he felt about him was _Crowley_.

Five years without him; how had he let that stand? Reason enough, starting as always, with business. London was now the most populous metropolis on the globe, and the city alone had a million or more souls to sustain. Lack of direct instructions from Above did not obviate his own basic nature to protect and to love. For Crowley’s part, he’d always found the interconnected world too full of potential mischief to withstand the pull of his own insatiable curiosity. Which was fine, Aziraphale conceded, as long as that pull eventually rebounded Crowley back to London, and to himself. 

When a fortuitous shift in the weather let them pitch caution to the winds, it could never be maintained for long. Five years of absence might feel too long, but it was most definitely at the thinner side of prudence. Some plausibility must be found, some fiction to explain their continued association, despite his own reckless assertions a few decades ago.

For the present, plausibility was a flimsy thing. More than once on the journey north Aziraphale had rehearsed arguments of prudence with himself, but he lost every time. How, he reasoned, could one live amongst humans without becoming a creature of appetites? 

He stepped into a grand room that was beautiful in its simplicity. Grey sandstone shone luminous in the afternoon sun that diffused from the grand skylights. Everything glowed, dreamlike and generous; the light cast the most flattering of complexions on the ladies and gentlemen, whether they were made from flesh or marble.

Across the threshold, his steps slowed as the full welcome of the demon soaked through him. The air’s pressure was ponderous, insistent at his skin. It burned his lungs, forcing a deep breath. For a moment, he was suspended in the liquidity of the moment. 

There were great granite plinths, rocks flung by the tide, scattered across the room. Europe’s finest modern sculpture, proudly displayed. So much to take in, and yet, there was only one aspect to admire. Crowley’s red hair spilled like a banner, raffish across the muted colours of the room. He sprawled on his back as though fallen (Fallen, thought Aziraphale on a rush), long legs tangled under a linen nightgown, one arm outstretched and the other curling fingers across his heart. Crowley’s head was thrown back, his eyes closed. Still as the statuary he emulated, but resonant with movement.

“Magnificent, isn’t he?”

A woman stood beside him; he could not tear his stare free enough to look properly, not with the solid weight of Crowley so close. He stepped towards him, away from her. The closer he moved, the more the water-sense rippled, as though he’d skipped a pebble across its surface. He felt hot, bothered, interrupted.

“You must be Lord Fell,” she said. “His Grace said that Mr Crowley’s particular friend was expected to join our party today. How do you find our little game?”

She had smiling eyes and a smiling mouth and neither held a shred of warmth. His attention sharpened then diverted to the sketch book she held open in her hands. On a broad page was one of the marble lions that guarded the doorway. Her charcoal had deftly captured the curl of paw and the yawning jaw. 

“You have a keen talent,” he said. “And it’s _Mr_ Fell. Simply a bookseller, I’m afraid.”

“Up from London,” she said. “So we’ve been told. And thank you, Sir, but there are others here with far more of a talent than I.”

With a painful _pop,_ his ears equalised as he forced the demon’s pressure to relent. Yet it still took a palpable effort to keep up with the conversation.

“Ah,” he agreed, vague.

“The ladies and gentlemen, for instance, there by Mr Crowley. They seem particularly taken. Mrs Gascoigne alone has dedicated herself to the most faithful rendition of his thighs.”

He was suddenly a great deal more interested than he had been in the artistic endeavours around him. “Perhaps I should go see for myself.”

There were two plinths in the centre of the room, both draped with reclining figures. He ignored Crowley, forced himself away from the tidal surge with a wrench of celestial effort. His appetite might be fierce, but five years’ absence was only an eyeblink, and his appetite had no business developing a timescale of its own. Instead of immediately indulging, he let himself acclimate to lulling waves of familiarity by taking in the vulnerability of _The Sleeping Endymion_ , trusting and supine on the first plinth. 

The gorgeous span of an outstretched calf. The biteable muscles. The adoration of the faithful hound. The curls of hair, so realistic. Why look to Crowley when the sculptor had created such perfection?

He moved to the second plinth, a block of dark granite, roughly polished, with hints of quartz catching the light. It was the still point in a restless room, its solidity grounding him, rewarding him for coming near enough to touch.

Lifting his gaze, he thought: _This is why._

“You,” Aziraphale murmured, “are a very contrary demon. Trying to tempt me, but so clearly in need of rescue yourself.”

He trailed fingertips up from the plinth’s base, touching _finally_ —along the line of Crowley’s shoulder, letting his thumb catch against the edge of the linen gown at the base of his throat. It was as delicate as it looked, slippery, and barely there as he wandered his touch to the liminal place where fabric met skin. Crowley’s shoulder juddered as he stroked to take in the textures. Cool and butter-soft as the marble around them, but vibrant in every dimension he could sense. And beautiful, so _beautiful,_ as the fabric fell artfully away.

He leaned down and in. The scent of water lilies intensified. Crowley’s skin was always sun-kissed, no need for fine weather to give the burnish on his cheeks, the vee at his chest, his forearms, his hands. Clusters of freckles dotted his collarbones and the bridge of his nose. 

(They had always been a lesson in temptation, those freckles. “Pique the imagination, angel. Show them a glimpse of what they might come to know, roll the sleeve a little. They’ll unbutton the rest.”) 

“Hmm,” Aziraphale mused, loud enough to be heard by the sketching ladies, and hauled himself away to stroll another circuit of the room.

The Duke had indeed curated a fine collection, an impressive gathering of the latest interpretations of nature and myth. Breathtakingly contemporary, with an eye to the past and a chisel to the future. The gathered guests were of a similar ilk: a mix of elevated craftsmen and their wives, lords and ladies, the sorts of interesting characters that made an Easter houseparty a jolly event. Aziraphale wondered which category Crowley currently occupied.

He circled back. The woman of before was now standing with a man with a bearded, foxy face. They were near to Crowley’s plinth, and the gentleman had an easel to which he applied his charcoal in confident strokes. He paused at Aziraphale’s approach. 

“Nathaniel Beckwell, my lord. You’ve met my wife, Priscilla?”

He nodded, not bothering with the correction if the young Duke had already broadcast his arrival. He’d known Georgiana as Lord Fell, and if her son thought he had inherited from his mother’s eccentric friend, there was little point in dissembling for the sake of his new career.

“Mr Crowley is an excellent model,” Priscilla said. “So patient.”

Wry, he countered, “No, he’s not patient at all. But he _will_ do as he pleases, for as long as he pleases.”

“An interesting interpretation,” she said, neutral enough, but not quite in entirety.

Aziraphale’s politeness frayed. “Have we met before, my dear?”

“We’ve become acquainted with Mr Crowley,” she said, which he supposed was an answer of sorts, though one that made his frown deepen.

Her husband rubbed at his sketch, blurring the lines. “I’ve been attempting Mrs Lee.” He gestured with a smudged hand toward a woman posing at the southern end of the room, an outstretched urn held as regally as though it were a sceptre and orb.

“Isn’t this fun?” Priscilla said. “Watching everyone play at being something they are not?”

Nathaniel reached to pull her close, a squeeze to her waist that stopped her next words, smoothing back blonde hair to kiss her forehead. “Like Pygmalion,” he said, a tease in his voice that let the idea take root in Aziraphale.

 _Oh_. His pulse tripped, the thought overwhelming. Crowley’s cool skin, face made gentle in endless repose like in the old story. Still and silent until a sudden press of lips, Crowley stealing breath like a thief from his own mouth. Skin ruddying with blood, the pump of it heating flesh, softening it from stone as he wakened to his touch, to touch him in return. 

Aziraphale brought a hand down in an impulsive miracle. Across the room, Mrs Lee laughed, and handed off her urn. “I do believe,” she proclaimed, “it is time for some fresh air. Afternoon tea in the garden, yes?”

Gaiety, movement. Sounds of easels creaking closed in agreement, too slow for the impatience that was now gnawing at Aziraphale.

Another minor miracle, loosed by the roll of his shoulders, made the visibility of his corporal form blur as if the guests had rubbed charcoal across a page. Beside him, the inconsequential Beckwells looked away, towards each other. He was unseen, forgotten.

There on the plinth, Crowley’s eyes opened. A glimmer of gold from beneath heavy lids. The smallest curve to his mouth.

Aziraphale felt joy overmaster his own face in return, a wash of relief, of affection. The rest of the group trickled out and he left them behind to circle once more. Crowley’s head tilted to follow, only the slightest movement, yet as intense as a caress. So often did Crowley himself make this watchful, coiling motion; Aziraphale knew well how _good_ it felt to be the barycentre of such an orbit.

“Are you sssatisfied, angel?” Low, sibilant. “With the art?”

“The _art._ ” He laughed, tickled by such a silly question. “As though you intended me to see anything but you, fiend.” As though he could be satisfied by _sight_ alone. 

“Only me.” Breathy; anticipatory; agreeable. 

The sense of being underwater intensified, pushing at the boundaries of his body.

Aziraphale pushed back until it ebbed into shallower waves. “Ah, but you’ve let yourself be ensnared by the humans,” he chided. “All around you. Coveting you.” 

“Have you come to save me then?” Crowley’s legs spread, rucking up linen and revealing more deliciously long lines.

Wanton, Aziraphale thought with appreciation, and replied airily, “Perhaps. However, I’m the proprietor of a small business. Busy, without the leisure you appear to have relied on.”

“And yet, you’re here.” His lashes fluttered.

Aziraphale trailed his pinky across an exposed ankle. “You contrived book business here for me,” he reminded. “And enough obvious demonic melodrama to justify the presence of an angel. Clearly you intended for me to be hard at work.”

At the Louvre on his last visit, he had seen another sculpture by Canova, the master of this gallery. More gorgeous even than the Endymion, it had stirred...thoughts. They stirred again as he circled Crowley a final time. Fabric stretched taut across the planes of his stomach. His chest, the shadow of a dark nipple beneath the ivory. Throat bare and vulnerable, his mouth half-parted. That tumble of soft hair.

So, so soft when he ran his hand through it. Aziraphale cupped his nape, rubbing his thumb along the curve until Crowley moaned under his touch, shifting eagerly on his bed of stone.

“Do you covet me, too, angel?” A bright stare up at him. “Like the humans do?”

He smiled, fingers tightening in hair, until Crowley gasped as he was half-pulled up by the force of the movement. Crowley went supple in his grasp, his mouth falling fully open. That demonic energy flooded the room, spilling everywhere. In delighted response, Aziraphale let his wings burst free, the _whoomph_ of power pushing back the uncontrolled wave. 

“Do I covet you?” he mused. _Thou shalt not_ , he thought, but Crowley was no chattel: he had fought aeons against dominion by other beings and yet here he gave himself freely to an angel. 

He wrapped an arm around Crowley’s body, cradling him to his chest as though he were Canova’s _Psyche_. Crowley reached back for him, arms twining up into an eager embrace.

“Oh, I covet you, my dear.” Flared above them both, Aziraphale’s wings refracted light. “But _nothing_ like the humans do.”  
  


* * *

  
When Aziraphale was last at Chatsworth, the library had been the long gallery. It was one of only a thousand such alterations that the present Duke had made to the estate, and that was not counting his father and grandfather’s changes. The entire North Wing was new. So was the dining room in which they were treated to five courses of supper last evening. 

“A small meal, as we are only a small party,” Cavendish had said, looking around at the twenty-odd guests.

Aziraphale had slipped away from the bedroom as the sun rose, stopping to retrieve a feather on the polished floor. Deep black tilted to emerald; the feather slipped in and out of the material plane in time with Crowley’s breathing as the demon curled in sleep. 

He made his way downstairs to the library, idly running the feather across the back of his hand. So soft. He tucked it away safely in his coat. A footman had delivered a salver of kedgeree and a fruit plate as the clocks struck eight, no doubt grateful that at least one of the Duke’s guests was of a hardy enough constitution to partake of the breakfast feast before noon. 

Last night had seen a great deal of wine consumed. Useful: Cavendish confided all manner of his recent and not-so-recent library acquisitions, just the sort of lively conversation an antiquarian book collector might like to have from one of the richest men in the realm. 

He was chortling over an almanac when a house steward bustled in with a handful of keys, trailed by Crowley. 

“We have only one in here, and without chimes, as my lord likes to read uninterrupted.” The steward gestured to the mantel timepiece, a fine gilt piece flanked by two figures yearning across the clock face towards each other.

“So does mine,” he heard Crowley respond before the demon turned to look around and up to the gallery. 

“Ha. Knew you’d be here.” 

“A truly brilliant deduction,” he said drily, but his tone was warm as he leaned over the railing. “A bibliophile. In a library.”

Crowley inclined his head. “Get down here, we’re doing the winding. Well, chap here’s doing the winding and I’m a nuisance with questions. Been waiting all week for this.”

The steward made a deferring noise and took down the clock to open its mechanism for inspection, pointing out the balance wheel and the jewel bearings. He produced a brush from a pocket and poked about, then selected a key from his collection, profferring it to Crowley.

Aziraphale felt about, but there was no hint of coercion in the actions. All the demon’s own charm—or more likely, all the demon’s own rabid interest in anything mechanical. And what an age for it. Engines and mills, steam and iron and gas, great spanning bridges—and the most intricate of mainsprings, as the steward described. Any human would want to be listened to as intently as Crowley did, attention fixated, his whole being focused on soaking up new knowledge.

He descended down to them, suddenly unwilling to have that attention elsewhere. 

“I am sorry there are no plinths here for you to drape across half-naked.” He settled onto a chaise and examined the fruit plate. Grapes, peaches—ha, the famous banana.

The steward held up his hand. “That should be full wound now, sir,” he directed at Crowley, the urgency in his voice aimed at terminating both the clock-winding and his own presence in the library. Clearly a wise, experienced sort of valet, and out of the room soon enough.

“You haven’t had enough of the draping?” Crowley’s enquiry was a little moot, as he dropped himself over, rather than on, a chair. He gestured to his waistcoat, an inky damask. “Or was it the other?”

Aziraphale just smiled at him and took a bite of the banana. 

He liked to see the demon blush. It was such an absurd, involuntary reaction, one that surprised Aziraphale in how he took pleasure evoking it. That a blush was a thing that could trouble a demon at all. In these corporations, where they could will away damage or disease with an instant thought.

Crowley didn’t disappoint, just shook his head with a smile that curved up pinked cheeks, and waved a hand at the library.

“Spirited away any of this lot yet?”

“Lord Cavendish has a number of duplicate volumes, on account of acquiring so many other men’s libraries.”

Crowley stared. Even through the spectacles, Aziraphale could see an echo of a hungry look. Crowley had worn it the previous evening, clicking the door shut behind them. He had bit down on his lip then, too, reddening the skin. (It was reassuring, and stimulating, for Aziraphale to know that he was not alone in this, that Crowley was hungry too.)

“These are _very_ good,” he said, taking the last bite and folding up the banana skin. “Though I can see why the matrons were whispering whether they ought ever to be eaten in polite company. Such a bawdy undressing to get at them—”

“Angel,” Crowley interrupted, cheeks flushing darker, “have mercy, unless you want to sacrifice your quiet morning pilfering this collection to more athletic pursuits.” 

Tempting, but he had mostly just wanted to redirect the demon from his tour of the great house. To keep him close by. Wasn’t that why he had come? His face must have reflected inner indecision, because Crowley sighed and deposited himself on the chaise beside him, flinging long legs over his own.

“Don’t be daft. I know you and other men’s libraries of old, remember? Right now the ghost of Chef Careme could ring the breakfast bell and you’d wring your hands over patisserie or—” he broke off to check the title of the book, “ _The Prophetic Messenger_ , really?” 

Aziraphale agreed with Crowley’s assessment of his priorities, and with his derision. “You should well scoff. When it first came out it was glorious! ‘Pointed hints on the Four Quarters of the Year, as to the fate of Britain, certain Individuals, Foreign States, &c’ or ‘the Timely Warning and Ominous Effects of some comet or another’. Now it’s just eclipses and tide tables.”

“Some of us like tides.” Crowley riffled the pages and settled himself back. “Go find yourself another book of fortune telling.”

The clock-winding was set aside, but Time, however, was not. Crowley muttered a low commentary on the sidereal calendar in the almanack for a while, then sloped off in search of some scientific papers from the Duke’s great-uncle. 

For his part, Aziraphale had spied a new translation of Augustine’s _Confessions_ , and was interested to see how it held up against his own recollections of the bishop from Algeria. Even in English translation it was the same old worrying about a misspent youth as he’d griped in the late 300s. He skipped over the autobiographical bits to the bishop’s own musings on time. 

At some point, there was a whoop from the ante-library, and Crowley came back in with a clutch of handwritten notebooks, precariously unbound. Aziraphale said as much, contemplating aloud the best binding for their size and shape, and broke off at the demon’s expression.

“What?”

“You. And this book thing.” Crowley had leaned on a desk, his head tilted to regard him, glittering in amusement.

“My dear, I could hardly become a collector without learning something about restoration.”

Crowley was shaking his head. “When you decide a thing is for you, you don’t do it by halves, do you?” 

Well. It was reckoning on sparse instances, but the conclusion could not be faulted. He was an angel. Opportunities for independent judgement did not come his way often; when they did, he liked to do them robustly and well.

And though Crowley was not a creature who brooked fractional efforts either, there had been plenty of compliments in the early hours, no need for more flattery. He patted the seat next to him instead. “Come and sit close. The fog is still on the grounds and you were warm before. Tell me what you’ve found.”

In good humour, Crowley described the notebooks. Uncle Cavendish the scientist. Experiments to determine the mass of the earth. Human ingenuity spilling from equations and marginalia in equal measure. Propping an arm on the back of the chaise, he turned to face Aziraphale. “No sign they’ve been read, all this while.”

“Not much time in between patronising the arts and improving the gardens, when you’re a Duke.” He stroked a thumb to the crease of Crowley’s elbow, left it there.

There were ruminations on electricity, and some on torsion mechanics. Heat transfer from Crowley’s palm, as he cupped Aziraphale’s knee in a practical demonstration. 

“I shall see these are bound properly,” he reassured Crowley, who kept a possessive hand on the pile of notebooks even as he set them aside. He laid his own hand on the demon’s, and the pile found itself two hundred miles south, in his workroom.

Crowley made a soft noise of contentment, and Aziraphale felt the texture of his skin shift as he trailed his fingers away. A little breach, then. So very effortful not to mingle something of their inner selves together, now that they were so habitually close. Which made him suddenly question, “Wait, did we _both_ just send them?”

“Oh no,” Crowley said, and held up his hand to watch the scales coruscate, before they faded and he took them back into himself. “No, that was all you. Have a care.”

There was a studied neutrality in the demon’s tone.

Aziraphale made a noncommittal noise. “I was reading Augustine, while you were up fossicking about.”

He turned the book over.

“Finally in English, eh?” Crowley flipped through the pages. “I never met the bloke. Know a couple demons who take some credit here and there, but then I suppose your lot do too.”

“A complex soul. I think you’d have had much in common.”

A snort. “Gotta have a few anxieties to write something called _Confessions_. Read me a juicy bit, then.” He handed the book back, and made himself comfortable.

Aziraphale smiled. “Time was the topic of the day, was it not?”

It was quiet in the house, the guests still abed and servants long finished all dawn chores. He slid fingertips into the fine, watery copper of Crowley’s hair where it spread over his lap. 

“‘ _My soul is on fire to know this most intricate enigma_ ,’ he writes.” 

Aziraphale looked down, and took in a breath to continue.

“Augustine is much vexed by the nature of time,” he explained, “and whether God _is_ time or there was time before God, and if so, what was God doing if not making creatures, creatures of course being the most important—”

They both laughed.

“Read, don’t editorialise,” Crowley jutted up his chin, and Aziraphale’s hand sunk deep into his curls, a curve around his scalp. He read:

“‘ _Let us see then, thou soul of man, whether present time can be long: for to thee it is given to feel and to measure length of time. Are a hundred years, when present, a long time?_ ’”

“What were we doing a hundred years ago?” Crowley’s eyes were closed. Though he wore his spectacles, the set of the lines about his brows gave him away. “I feel like there was a handy crop of earthquakes and an election. I didn’t have to do much to file a decent report.”

“There was that fire at White’s,” he recollected, “it interrupted a jolly good bottle of claret. And we went to the opera. Handel.”

Aziraphale had kept a calendar for some time. Brief notes, an aide-memoire with events and travels, memorable persons and the news of the day. It was a mundane counterpart to his maps; they were an annotated record of his grace.

He read on for a bit, then chuckled. “I think we can agree that a hundred years must seem long to a human.” 

Crowley mused, “What _is_ a long time, then. For us? Did we make our Arrangement a long time ago? Feels like half of existence, sometimes. But other times...the pile of days is massive. Sort of collapses in on itself, and I think it’s only been a week since that first rain fell on the humans.”

 _On the humans_ , Aziraphale thought. Because he hadn’t let that rain fall on the demon. He felt hot behind his eyes for a second, unsure what to say. 

Blessedly, Crowley did not wait for an answer. “Of course down in Hell Satan makes sure everything feels endless, even when you’re just popping in to pick up your messages.”

Heaven felt endless, too. Aziraphale took refuge back in human musings. 

“Shush. ‘ _Times past and to come, wherever they be, they are not there as future, or as past, but as present. When past facts are related, they are drawn out of the memory, not as the things themselves which are past, but with words which, conceived by the images of the things, they, in passing, have through the senses left as traces in the mind_.’”

Halfway through his reading, Crowley threw a hand up into the aether, sketched a vivid image of his perspective from the plinth in the sculpture gallery, with Aziraphale braced close above him, care and desire manifest in equal measure. Crowley laughed. “Convoluted nonsense. Does he just mean to say that this is my past, because I can conceive an image of it?” 

Plainly Augustine had taught all he could for the morning. Aziraphale set him aside. 

“Imprecise indeed,” he agreed, tugging firmly enough on his handful of Crowley’s curls for a whimper, “for it is also your future.”  
  


* * *

  
A drystone wall once surrounded the park. It had tumbled down in places where the red deer and cattle had no respect for human enclosures. In other parts, as Crowley pointed out, successive Dukes and their landscapers had differences of opinion regarding the utility and beauty of a wall, so, as they walked, a tidy stretch might abruptly stop into a cairn of sandstone before starting again in the distance. They roamed over the parkland in the early morning, no rain but damp with the mist still to rise up the wooded Derbyshire hills behind the house.

Fallow deer grazed at a distance. Curious, a parcel of them ambled closer, but soon froze in their tracks, ears twitching.

“They think you’re a predator,” Crowley laughed.

“Surely yourself, demon,” Aziraphale said, but there was no remonstrance. Most humans would see them as man-shaped beings, but deer had no encultured sense to blind them, only a well-honed nose for all things terrifying.

Crowley swished his stick at the grass, spattering dew from the cowslips and startling the deer into retreat. They must have warned their herd, for as the slope rose and the trees increased, only the most stupid of goats came within sight. 

From the hunting tower they turned to look back down at the estate. The nearest village signalled life from the chimney stacks, industry from the progress of carters along the road. The parkland, carefully designed to present England’s nature at her best, rolled and dipped in the wide valley. But it was the house, the sprawl of yellow sandstone, that commanded attention. The North Wing was newly-built; further on, the garden was cleared for Paxton’s great glass projects—and where Crowley, enamoured, could always be found these past few days. Small figures moved across the grounds, servants scurrying between garden and kitchen. A groundskeeper emerged from the stables, hounds trailing obediently.

“Big house,” Crowley commented.

“Ridiculous house.”

“Oh? You have opinions now that you own your own place?”

Aziraphale smiled at him. “My dear, this is all my own place, no matter what falsities His Grace may believe about _his grace._ ”

“You’re something else,” Crowley told him with an answering grin.

“The deer thought so. Come, further on. There’s a wall that wants tidying and we can amuse our host with a donation of common labour.” 

Through a thicket and out again, Crowley quizzed him about a Principality’s innate awareness of land ownership and whether he’d _felt_ the Norman Conquest.

“The Romans, the Danes, I mean, everyone’s had a crack haven’t they? What’s it like for you?”

He considered as they walked. “I suppose a human would say it’s like a new shirt. Awkward at first no matter how fine the cloth, comfortable after a few washes no matter how coarse the weave.”

“Pretty metaphor,” Crowley dismissed. “I’m not human. Tell me properly.”

Aziraphale glanced at him, worried as he ever was to invoke what Crowley had left behind in his descent from Heaven, but the demon’s expression was only impatient curiosity.

In words more rounded and profound than any language he’d learned on Earth, he tried to describe the sensations. In their vernacular he could use tone to evince dimensions not renderable by human minds, while harmonics could relay the complex interweave of people and nature.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much like a new shirt.”

“I did say.”

They came upon the collapsed wall. It was thick, of double construction and filled with smaller stones. A tie-stone, crucial for binding the two sides together, had come free. Cattle and tree-roots had done the rest. Crowley harrumphed, and gestured from the ground to bring the spilled stones back to order.

Aziraphale stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Let’s have a little bolt-hole. For the beasts.” Better they should have a gap ready-made to pass through, rather than butt against a chink and tumble the lot down.

“You do love a loophole.” Crowley thought it was a waste of time and told him so, but as Aziraphale turned to survey the countryside for another new bracing stone, he saw Crowley eye the stones critically, floating them in different directions to build up the wall. The movement of the earth through the air resonated as they both worked. It was like conversation. It made him happy.

“Aha, you shall suit.” He found a slab of limestone, half his height and made level enough with an encouraging word. It would be difficult for even the deer to dislodge once laid down. He began to say so, but his attention caught on a movement just beyond the trees. A woman was standing there, watching them. He couldn’t place her slight build and brown hair as one of the guests he’d met, but she seemed oddly familiar to him. Likely one of the servants he’d seen previously, then, foraging mushrooms for the evening meal. He lifted his hand in polite greeting, but found she had already gone. Startled away, perhaps—not just the deer, then. Aziraphale did a quick check, and discovered that his Grace was somewhat carelessly spilling into this plane, drawn to the joy of the day. Somewhat embarrassed, he tidied himself back in as best he could.

“Well, I’m knackered,” Crowley said, leant against his neatly crafted wall, horizontal layers topped by a diagonal stack. He looked as immaculate as he had that morning when they set out, that day’s waistcoat green and garlanded in floral embroidery, a greatcoat that brooked no mud or burrs to be suffered. He waved at the gap he’d left, plenty enough for a sheep in lamb to squeeze through. 

“Just needs your join-y bit to go across—Hell’s bells, that’s half a quarry there.”

Aziraphale laid the stone across the edge of the adjoining half and dusted off his hands. The stones beneath settled under the weight. 

“You _do_ have an eye for the design,” he said, sure that Crowley would want to complete the pattern. Though it served him an eye-roll undisguised by spectacles, the demon did not disappoint, and brought together the rest of the stones to finish their work.

“I’ll provide a heroic description of the efforts to Cavendish, if you like,” Crowley said, stepping up to him. “We’ll need to loosen up this cravat though, add a smear or two of labourer’s toil. He’ll be throwing half his library at you in gratitude.”

“No real need,” Aziraphale assured, though he made no attempt to interrupt the brush of Crowley’s thumb as it placed an imaginary smudge on his cheek. “Our Duke takes quite a concern for provenance and he’s amenable to a second opinion on his plays from a fellow collector. I’ll need to take some volumes back to London, of course.”

“Naturally,” Crowley said.

They followed the tracks of a thousand other perambulators towards the trout stream. Beside them the wall narrowed and lowered to only a waymark, and Crowley balanced on the rubble for a handful of strides, weaving across either side as they walked and talked. 

“This is more like it,” Crowley gestured, spinning around when they came deeper into an arboretum. No longer simple woodland, but an exotic melange of trees collected abroad by the Duke and his gardeners. They wandered through the grove, recollecting the places they’d seen this hemlock, that eucalypt, that pine.

Watching the demon exclaim (“Oooh, bamboo—that’ll never last.”) Aziraphale strongly suspected that Crowley was intent on extending his invitation here at Chatsworth as long as he could, if only to slither happily amongst the constant stream of botanic wonders arriving from around the globe. 

He stopped at a shrub, glossy green leaves and a riot of pale buds bursting open. Some of the blooms were pristine, some with rust-coloured bruising from the wind. On a side table in his guest bedroom, a half dozen floated in a bowl of water, their cream texture thick as the best parchment.

“These tea flowers, Crowley,” he called, “how would they fare on a London rooftop?”

Crowley came to peer. “ _Camellia japonica_. Eh, might be alright. Probably hate the smoke and the pea-soupers, but you can—what, you’ll put _flowers_ up there? I thought that roof was just for keeping an eye on the neighbourhood?”

“No reason not to be surrounded by beauty too,” he smiled, wondering what Crowley would say about his little peach tree, flourishing in a sunny spot. He imagined they could sit up there when it fruited, a summer or two from now, and eat the peaches with a good Madeira. 

But perhaps it would not do to be so complacent. Heaven had visited his bookshop, inconveniently, on several occasions. To peer and scrutinise—

“Angel?”

Crowley was asking him something, waving one of the flowers as he did so. Archery, he was saying. The guests were to have an Easter tournament. 

“Yes, yes, of course.” He set aside his qualms—their intrusion was nothing new—and gave Crowley all his attention. The demon was considering what manner of devastating wager could be had.

“I would back the bookish city gent with the soft hands out of loyalty, of course. The one with excellent farsight and a few lifetimes handling a longbow.”

“A little unfair,” chided Aziraphale, but their company was the gentry, and if Cavendish had inherited his mother’s taste for gambling it was all moot anyhow.

He took a long look sideways at Crowley, who had stuffed a bloom behind his ear and was steering them down towards the gardens. The water of the Cascade glinted through the trees, darts of light around Crowley’s profile, and Aziraphale flashed back to the day of his arrival, the glow suffused through the skylight windows, the rainbow coruscations flashing from his wings onto the demon’s face. 

He suddenly recalled the velvet weight of the feather still safe in his pocket. Archery for their afternoon? An exotic fir, upright and interloping between oaks, called out with its straight trunk and branches. The resinous needles wafted camphoric to his nose, but it was the dense wood that he gathered into a bundle.

From craning his neck up at a cedar, Crowley said, with a puzzled glance, “Think the coal-boy brings in the firewood.” 

“Arrows.” Aziraphale joined him. He pointed up at the cedar. “This is lovely. Makes me think of Berytus. Now that _was_ a long time ago. Do you remember those absolutely divine honey cakes?” He could smell them, steaming and floral, a layer of walnuts crunching bittersweet at the end.

Crowley laughed. “I remember _you_ and the honey cakes. Let’s find you some lunch.”  
  


* * *

  
Aziraphale walked back down to the lawn, side-stepping a trio of ladies emerging from a shrubbery path. Their wicker baskets were full of azaleas, secateurs at the ready. A trail of less-than-perfect foliage was discarded as they strolled, left to the garden boys to tidy in their wake.

Even at a distance, his gaze was immediately drawn to Crowley’s figure by the Cascade, angled in such a way as to suggest serious conversation with his interlocutor. Aziraphale recognised the architect from dinner, a society man in his own right, and according to Crowley, the actual brains behind the great glasshouse project.

(“Happy enough to let young Paxton take the credit for it, though. Who needs a potting shed in the Peak District when you’ve been responsible for Regent’s Park?”)

In the shade of the topiary, young Paxton himself stood, gesturing hat in hand as he talked with the Duke, their social positions set aside for an Easter Saturday of games. They too had a posture of easy familiarity, one that spoke of Cavendish’s enthusiasm for botany and his head gardener’s enthusiasm for the Duke.

(“You reckon?” Crowley had been sceptical.

“Most reverently.”)

Most ardently was Aziraphale’s true assessment, but if the demon wasn’t picking up on that one he was snoozing on the job.

Landscape architecture kept Crowley deep in discussion, but Aziraphale was quickly swallowed into the chatter of other members of the party keen to prey on unknown talent. 

“Mr Fell, you have arrows but no bow!” one of the ladies exclaimed, sizing him up as she laced up a gauntlet. He remembered her studied interest in Crowley’s thighs. 

“Mrs Gascoigne,” he smiled, generous now that he’d conducted his own study and because he could not fault her for her taste. “A few sticks and feathers fashioned for fun only. I hoped to borrow from our kind host—ah, yes—”

A grizzled chap standing master-of-arms offered him a lightweight fifty-pound bow. 

“Oh my good fellow, no no. Eighty. Seventy if we must.” Perhaps it would suit Crowley’s fiction if he were to play the sporting incompetent, but one had one’s dignity.

Mrs Gascoigne raised her eyebrows and took a more assessing inspection of his person before she turned to nock her arrow. She had good form on her draw and the arrow flew true, landing just on the edge of the outer red.

The man returned with a more substantial bow. (“Laburnum, seventy pounds and it’s the ‘eaviest we gots.”) Aziraphale set to examine it as the ladies took their turns and the boys retrieved arrows where they could. Some snaked along the grass or went awry into the lake to peals of good-natured laughter, but an equal number were sunk deep into the mark with a satisfying thwock and a bright burst of pleasure from the shooter. A similar variety of skill was on show amongst the men, though the congratulatory hoots were underlaid with a brittle sense of competition. He took stance with the customary motions creaking a little; it was a few years since he’d drawn a bow for sport and many centuries since he’d kept one of his own.

His first shot went wide, loosed a fraction too soon: it struck awkwardly into the black. The second met the inner red nicely, and his third into the gold.

“I say, Fell, that’s getting your eye in jolly swift,” a wag observed from the side, “I thought you academic types were only fit for close work.”

“We can rise to the occasion when the trumpet calls,” he replied, and the next shot, and the next, gratifyingly struck gold again.

He glanced over his shoulder to gloat to Crowley, but the demon wasn’t there as he should have been. He stood instead some distance away, on the banks of the Cascade. He was with, ah yes, he was with the couple from the other day, what had been their names?

Aziraphale toyed with the leather tab protecting his fingers, then turned back to watch the ladies take their turn at the target. Red again: Mrs Gascoigne really did have an affinity for biting at the cherry.

And Crowley had an affinity for trouble. No doubt some infernal plot afoot. A temptation? Secret business of some kind? He stared back again at the little group by the water. He could feel the itch of Crowley’s power in use and it was _very_ distracting.

“Your shot, Fell.”

Well. He’d overcome worse obstacles in his day. He drew back, sighting. That itch again, but stronger. He let his focus stray beyond the target towards the figures by the Cascade. The water that...he squinted...was now...was flowing back _up_ its hill.

The arrow released in his sudden consternation, falling well short of the mark, and indeed, the entire target. As it skidded into the grass, the assembled company gave him due applause. Aziraphale felt his cheeks redden, but indulged them with a sheepish nod of acknowledgement.

What in Hell was Crowley up to?

The noise of the little group’s merriment had by then drawn the demon’s attention. Aziraphale saw him turn away from his conversation to look back.

He frowned, and drew again, letting his concentration focus down. The hayrick holding the target loomed, the gold circle with its spidery cross in the very centre. He adjusted his stance and let the arrow fly. It soared through the air...

...and skewered Crowley’s hat.

The demon looked nicely befuddled, even viewed from this distance. The raucous laughter of the assembled guests certainly helped with the effect.

Another of the gentlemen was stepping up to take his turn as Crowley sauntered up. 

“You’d think,” said Crowley, damaged hat tucked under his arm, eyebrow raised, “that all that practice at Agincourt would have improved your aim by now.”

“My aim seems perfectly serviceable from where I stand.”

“Hmm.” Crowley brandished the hat then tossed it away. He stalked closer. “Perhaps you need a little tutorial.” The demon brought his fingers up into a decisive snap. The air shimmered, the surrounding people blurring as Crowley made the two of them unnoticed, unseen.

His own fingers twitched where they clutched the curve of his bow. “In _hamartia_?” he asked, with his most innocent look.

Oh, _that_ wordplay on sin didn’t miss its mark. The shape of Crowley’s half-smile twisted: jaggedly hungry and achingly soft all at once. “In whatever you’d like best, angel.”

And there it was, what he’d found over long, long centuries that he liked best:

A heavy hand at his hip, long fingers splayed to pull him in and settle him. The other hand a reassuring pressure at his elbow. A hard thigh, nudging his leg to push him into place. A sharp chin resting against the taut muscles of his shoulder. The stuttering sound of unnecessary breath.

With steady fingers, Aziraphale set the fir arrow fletched from his demon’s wing against the bowstring.

Crowley brushed his mouth across Aziraphale’s temple. “For luck,” he murmured, then stepped away with his own _snap_.

“You’re next, Fell,” came the cue.

In the library, the miracle with the journals had been effortless to the point where he honestly hadn’t known where his work had ended and Crowley’s began. On the field, wrapped so close, if it had been his miracle guiding Crowley’s arrow to the centre mark, he would never be able to tell.

### Authors' notes

 **Archery, Legal requirement to practice  
** There’s some confusion over the statutory requirement, but as recently as ten years ago a Wiltshire vicar invoked a [medieval law](https://loweringthebar.net/2010/06/do-englishmen-still-have-to-show-up-for-longbow-practice.html) requiring all citizens to show up for archery practice.

 **Augustine of Hippo’s** **_Confessions  
_ ** Not the Augustine of the pilgrimage to Kent; the other famous Augustine, an Algerian theologian of a couple hundred years earlier. [ _Confessions_](http://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/augustine/) is an autobiography of sorts. He wrote (and wrote, and wrote) copious influential treatises regarding the philosophy and practice of the Western Christian church. Blame Augustine for formalising the doctrine of original sin. Blame us for having more than one early Christian Augustine in the same piece of fanfic.

 **Bachelor Duke  
** William Cavendish, [6th Duke of Devonshire](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cavendish,_6th_Duke_of_Devonshire), son of the infamous [Georgiana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgiana_Cavendish,_Duchess_of_Devonshire). If, like us, you’re a big fan of that niche genre of “rich bachelors of history who may or may or may not have been in a torrid affair with their head gardener,” have we got speculation for you.

 **Banana, The famous  
** The cultivar of banana that you chop up for your cereal is almost certainly a [Cavendish Banana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_banana). It is named after the 6th Duke after he imported some in 1834; gardener [Paxton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Paxton) cultivated them in the famous greenhouses. (And there was indeed Discourse about Lewdness).

 **Cascade, The  
** Basically a waterslide, but Crowley would definitely admire [this](https://www.chatsworth.org/garden/history-of-the-garden/early-garden/cascade/) nice bit of 17th century landscape engineering.

 **Chatsworth House  
** If it is not already blindingly obvious, the authors have a love/hate relationship with many aspects of English history, particularly that of the privileged. Our thoughts on land ownership are gently sprinkled throughout the story, so we’ll set those aside here and just say: Chatsworth is the fuck-off massive estate (only one of many) of the Cavendish family, the Dukes of Devonshire. You’ll have seen it, or parts of it, in any number of historical costume dramas (most famously, _Pride and Prejudice_ with Keira Knightley). If you’d like to imagine in detail, here are the [ room cards ](https://www.chatsworth.org/media/11113/chatsworth_room-cards_english_web-allcompressed.pdf) for the Visitor’s Route; the [ Wiki ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatsworth_House) page; and the very good [ website](https://www.chatsworth.org/). Gardens Illustrated have also just released a [ virtual tour](https://www.gardensillustrated.com/gardens/gardens-to-visit/chatsworth-virtual-garden-tour/?utm_content=buffer96c5b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer), nice timing!

 **Chef Careme, the ghost of  
** The OG [celebrity chef](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Antoine_Car%C3%AAme).

 **_Hamartia  
_ ** From the Greek, meaning “to miss the mark”, as in a tragic flaw. There’s speculative linguistic thinking linking the idea of [ _hamartia_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamartia) to the _New Testament_ idea of _sin_ and terminology from practice of archery. It seemed too obvious a joke for Aziraphale to make, though we acknowledge its opacity to the modern audience (sorry, not sorry).

 **Sculpture Gallery  
** The Bachelor Duke was a keen collector of modern sculpture, and had a [purpose-built gallery](https://www.chatsworth.org/media/9440/about-charles-noble-article-apollo.pdf) to show it all off. His [Canova](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Canova), [_The Sleeping Endymion_](https://www.chatsworth.org/art-archives/devonshire-collections/sculpture/the-sleeping-endymion/), is magnificently OTT. Easy to see why Crowley would have both found it hilarious and arousing in equal measure. The Canova that Aziraphale remembered from the Louvre, and recreated with Crowley, is [_Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyche_Revived_by_Cupid%27s_Kiss). 

The modern ducal families have kept up the interest in [modern sculpture ](https://www.wallpaper.com/art/british-blockbuster-sothebys-chatsworth-sculpture-show-celebrates-home-talent) and the latest piece [_Natural Course_](https://www.instagram.com/p/CBK6j_wDW0R/) by Laura Ellen Bacon is a corker. 

**_Prophetic Messenger  
_ ** Aziraphale’s long-standing interest in books of prophecy did not end with Mother Shipton but rather continued right up through Victorian times. In the middle decades of the 19th century the [ _Prophetic Messenger_](https://www.astrolearn.com/astrology-bibliography/the-prophetic-messenger-raphaels-almanac-1827-1854/) started off being charmingly batshit about the Second Coming of Christ but then ended up a boring set of weather forecasts.

 **Uncle Henry Cavendish’s library and notebooks  
** There’s a through-line here from 1783, because [Henry Cavendish](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish) was able to implement John Michell’s experimental torsion balance for measuring the gravitational constant and thus—importantly for science—the mass of the Earth. This is known now as the Cavendish Experiment, in that grand English tradition of posh nobs nicking the ideas of other people. At least Henry Cavendish was actually a decent jobbing chemist and physicist in his own right. 

#### Music from the _Planning Permission_ playlist

[13 Pieces for Piano, Op. 76, 2. Etude](https://open.spotify.com/track/4KEiSfnnR70F0Iz5Y9Hh3Y?si=_MkqvoXURxa-I70AfMqHlA)  
Jean Sibelius, Jian Wang

[Paradise Circus](https://open.spotify.com/track/2BndJYJQ17UcEeUFJP5JmY?si=0qF3DpsOTNisYX7EMjXHDQ)  
Massive Attack

#### Perfumes

[Lazy Sunday Morning](https://www.maisonmargiela-fragrances.eu/en/product/484399/replica-lazy-sunday-morning), by Maison Margiela  
Crowley draped in linen and waterlilies

[Volcano](https://carnerbarcelona.com/black-luxury-perfumes/volcano), by Carner  
Aziraphale in the Duke’s library

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/620569513065365504/planning-permission). In which, there are plants (in this story, there are always plants).


	15. Chatsworth, 1834, Part II

Crowley insisted they take their post-prandial stroll out to one of the glass houses.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” Crowley told him. “I’ve something to show you.” His hand rested at Aziraphale’s elbow as they walked, rubbing gently and with something that felt like promise.

“You could do that somewhere more comfortable,” Aziraphale pointed out, but with indulgence. “To the victors go the spoils?” He touched his waistcoat pocket, where he’d put the golden coin they’d won in the archery tourney. 

“Smug,” Crowley teased.

“You’re one to talk. Your lack of subtlety astounds. Whatever were you thinking with that little trick with the water?”

Crowley grinned, his fingers squeezing in amusement. “Those Beckwells? Think they’re clever to have spotted a demon, but they’re still not sure what they want to do with me. Thought a demonstration of the impossible things _I_ could do for _them_ might push things along.”

“Dare I ask? And must I intervene?”

“Nah. Those two were never going to make the cut for your lot; I’ll have more fun with them than you would. Got it covered. Haven’t had a decent Faustian bargain in centuries, and they’re gagging for it.”

That deserved an eye-roll. “I meant, intervene on _your_ behalf. I’d rather you didn’t get accidentally discorporated through your own hubris. Remember, if you will, I’m here to rescue you.”

“I thought you were here on business.”

“Yes, well, clearly my business involves your corporation.”

“Does it now.”

“Yes. A hands-on project.” He tried to hold the straight face but succumbed, rushing out on a peal of laughter, “I’m told on good authority that you’ve something special to show me.”

Crowley laughed, too, pressing close enough that their hips rubbed with every step. “I do. Consider it a step up from my little trick, as you put it, with the water.”

Ooh, that _was_ intriguing. 

They came up a gentle slope towards the glass houses. The turf underfoot was lush for the early season and redolent with the first hardy blooms of spring. Crowley’s grudging praise to the primroses was nearly as pleasurable. Then the demon went and brought work into it.

“You know, if I _were_ to be discorporated, your Head Office might stop with their inspections. A feather in your cap, so to speak.”

Having already put a feather in Crowley’s cap that day, Aziraphale hadn’t the need to continue such a ridiculous conversation. “Your absence would be very inconvenient to the Arrangement,” he countered. “I’ve a series of errands for you to run when you can spare the time. I’d like to not leave the shop unattended, you see.”

“Of course,” Crowley said. His thumb found its way nicely to the crease of Aziraphale’s elbow. “Understandable.”

“Besides, while my colleagues are aggravatingly tiresome, they’ve hardly any authority. It’s your lot that can be more trouble. And you’ve been travelling quite a bit for them lately.”

Their pace slowed. “Ah. You noticed that?” Crowley disengaged his touch and crouched down to examine the flowers.

“The Arrangement,” Aziraphale repeated. “Much more convenient when you're about.” He paused but Crowley didn’t seem inclined to comment so he continued, “If Hell is bothering you, I could help. Give you, well, let’s call it an insurance policy. It would be easy enough for me to set a trap for you and for you to, um, thwart my intentions. Do recall, my dear, you’re not the only one who can do little tricks with water.”

The late afternoon light wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the shadows of Crowley’s smoked spectacles, but still, Aziraphale watched him carefully for his reaction.

“ _Aquam vino_? I don’t think Ligur would appreciate your taste in cabernet,” Crowley said finally. 

“The _holy_ trick with water,” he said in exasperation.

Crowley’s mouth quirked. “I know what you mean.”

He offered his hand, and the first touch of their palms sparked an urgent need not to let go once the demon had been pulled to his feet.

He didn’t let go, pressing close.

Crowley looked down between their bodies to where their fingers tangled, then up into Aziraphale’s face. He leaned in, speaking softly, “Thanks for coming to rescue me, angel.”

The pad of his thumb settled in the groove between knuckles. “Oh, hush.”

Crowley waved him inside the glasshouse, shutting them in quickly. Heat welled up from the floor, where a lattice of cast ironwork covered a complex system of heating pipes.

“Ohh. It’s so warm.” Aziraphale let out a little sigh, standing still for a moment to absorb the gentle humidity, such a contrast to the cool of the late afternoon they’d left outside. He’d not yet been in this celebrated glasshouse on his visit, despite Crowley’s enthusiastic descriptions. How remiss he had been.

Glass soared in elegant panels, held by cathedral-like tracery of iron and wood. No straight walls or roof here, but instead, swooping ridges and valleys of glass caught the light at every angle. The plants were suffused in the golden glow of sunset, foliage limned bright and every leaf damp and verdant. Tall palms and flowering exotics stretched to the ceiling, climbers twined up a central spiralling stair, and behind a narrow balustrade, a clerestory circled from which to view the greenery below.

Pipes clanked and hissed occasionally, further on, a burbling sound of water. Behind him, he heard a rustle of fabric as Crowley took off his coat, and Aziraphale did the same, turning his hands and his face each way as the misty air settled into his skin. Some long, long ago memories tickled at him, of tropical places and the call of birds. 

“Nice, right?” Crowley bundled coats into the aether. “I want one.”

Aziraphale hummed agreement, brushing the back of his hand against velvety leaves as he wandered towards the source of water—an octagonal pond, trickling gently beside the staircase. “I’m not surprised. No wonder you’ve been interrogating that engineer.” 

No answer, for when he turned, Crowley was basking. Of course he would love this riot of greenery and balmy heat. Fogged-up spectacles abandoned, his eyes were half-closed, face turned up and burnished in the light. His green waistcoat was near black with the contrast of the sunshine. Behind him, a wall of orchids shaded from white through to deepest crimson. 

Aziraphale could not help himself. “You are quite splendid, my dear.”

Crowley tucked his chin and levelled his gaze, his face still for a moment. He shook his head, a faint smile, and ducked behind a tangle of palms. 

“Compliments in the daytime, angel?” 

“When provoked.”

“I was provoked _relentlessly_ by your athletic adventures all afternoon,” Crowley appeared from a side aisle, “and you don’t see me throwing about improprieties.”

“Sometimes needs must—oomph—” Aziraphale was cut off as Crowley manoeuvred him back, pinning him against the stairwell. Close-up, his wolfish grin was shaded by a fading blush. Something about that, some unspoken revelation, touched Aziraphale deep inside. 

“Wanted to show you something.” Crowley was very near, and very warm. 

“You said.” Aziraphale leaned back into the solidity of the iron frame. The sultry air was filled with the scent of waterlilies, stronger now than it had ever been in the sculpture gallery. He breathed it in, his head swimming. 

Then he breathed in Crowley, as the demon crowded in, tilted his head for a pressing kiss; warmer, heavier, closer than the air, skin softened and made slick in the damp. A suspended embrace, pure material sensation with all the rushing, tugging undertow that always thrilled him about Crowley.

“Nghh,” Crowley lifted his head, “no, really, I want to show you something.”

Aziraphale realised he’d made a start on the third button of Crowley’s waistcoat before his words registered. Or rather, the tone registered: an excitement beyond the discovery of a new plant or invention.

He was pulled over to the edge of the pond, where Crowley scanned across the carpet of waterlilies, pink and white amongst their round leaf pads. He drummed fingers into the water, disrupting a cluster of beetles to skim across the surface.

As Aziraphale watched, Crowley settled on a pink bloom and curved his palm around its shape. Around the lily, the air thickened, light curving and flexing along the path of Crowley’s fingers, then suddenly stilled. The particles suspended like a globe of ice, then simmered away, leaving the faintest luminescence around the flower. Twice more Crowley bent matter around the lilies, and then shook out his hands. 

“Shall I guess?” Aziraphale ventured. Much more so than himself, the demon liked to push at the edges of his innate capabilities. There was elemental practice here, but when Aziraphale ran his own hands over the edges of the invisible sphere, it was unknown to him. Nothing foul, nothing fair. Entirely neutral.

“Nope,” Crowley looked pleased with himself, “just humour me and wait till the light goes.” He straightened and looked up at the roof, where the sky was deep orange. “Sunset in the garden.” He took Aziraphale’s hand.

To Aziraphale, the touch of their skin felt as fiercely possessive and delightful as before. 

They wandered about in the fading light, comfortable silence punctuated with gossip from the day, an opinion on a bloom. Another long, barely-banked kiss to haul Crowley up on a potting bench, his hands streaking dirt all down Aziraphale’s pristine sleeves in retaliation.

“How much longer, fiend?”

“Hngh. I like this impatient side of you. Feral. ‘S good.”

“Yet you’re so fond of the domesticated.” Aziraphale kept a light tone, running a hand down Crowley’s haunch. His thoughts fetched up others he’d had on and off these past days, watching his friend’s fascination with the Duke’s gardens. Or—yes, these thoughts were much older. Crowley’s interest in human control over the natural world was an ancient thing. 

(“Look, they’ve kept all the pips from the tasty fruit and planted them out. Clever, eh? Did the same thing with the good milking cattle.”)

Beside them on the bench sat a cluster of small, delicate tropicals, their leaves dewy with moisture. “Far from their rainy forest homes,” Aziraphale said, picking up one of the plants, “I thought you valued freedom? This is only kept thriving through artifice.”

“Artifice and _care_ ,” Crowley countered, then hurriedly: “And if I were this—what are you, a mimosa?—well, I’d think I was bloody lucky to see the world and be admired abroad. Not just stuck in the same patch of dirt.”

_Care_. He squeezed Crowley’s knee, and should have been content, but he found himself saying: “All the care in the world won’t help if this sanctuary,” he gestured around, “ceases to be. Anything might risk it. A shortage of coal for the heating. Vandals breaking the glass.” 

He stopped, glanced away, words catching too close on some other feelings. Crowley slithered back down beside him, skated a kiss across his cheek.

“Probably. But look, this fern here needs a bloody great bit of tough love.”

Aziraphale turned to see Crowley brandishing a knife meaningfully at a fern. It was a once-grand thing, but crispy brown fronds drooped heavily underneath sparse new growth. Crowley hacked away at it, taking all of the damaged growth off, with no mercy unless a shoot was bright green. By the time he was finished it was a stumpy echo.

“Poor thing.”

“Poor nothing, angel. Give it a few months and it’ll be glorious, all of that old deadweight cleared away.” He glanced around, some internal light measure ringing a bell. “Come on, it’s dark enough now.”

In the gathering shadows, the pond yet glowed. Phosphorescent speckles of green algae gleamed against the black water. Floating pads shone like empty dinner plates now that the last of the sun-drunk insects had sobered up and buzzed off. The bright flowers had closed along with the day, their petals folded away to tight bulbs.

The picture of tranquility, but he tilted back, unsure of what he was meant to see.

“Look,” Crowley urged.

He looked, and on an exclamation, saw that the flowers had closed, yes, but not those that Crowley had touched. They were exactly as they had been, and exactly as they would be. Until:

Crowley knelt and reached, tapping one with his fingertip. It happened all at once and so strangely. The dissipating shimmer, the quiver of petals, the staccato stuttering closure from one instant to the next, until the flower slumbered, as dormant as its fellows.

Aziraphale ran his palm across Crowley’s cheek, urgently needing to ground his whirling thoughts in the catch and drag of soft skin left pliant by the humidity. “Time. You’ve captured _time_ —”

Crowley nodded, colour rising.

“Clever, _lovely_ demon. Tell me—”

Crowley’s seeking mouth searched his life-lines, then moved down to his wrist. His tongue darted to taste his pulse point. Hot, wet, and Aziraphale ignited. Chased that mouth, desperately wanting it against his own.

“Let me show you,” rasped Crowley.

“Yes, _yes_. Show me.”

* * *

Hauled back onto the potting bench, caged in and spread open, Crowley had been smeared with dirt and pleasure, voice hoarse as he called out for mercy and more and _more_. 

On the bed, Aziraphale now found himself on his back, those opulent black wings out above him like a second canopy.

Mercy, more, _more._

Crowley’s gaze was avid. Luminous. He touched with filthy reverence, and Aziraphale found himself at the brink quickly as calloused fingers worked into his eager body with a relentless, concentrated rhythm. 

Every time their bodies slid against each other, his skin felt too tight and too infinite, too eldritch and too _mortal_. Nerve-endings sizzled, scorched. Aziraphale was intimately familiar with his own gratification and yet he had nothing to compare to this, nothing so good, so profane. So very close to the edge, he teetered, dizzyingly close—

—and then time stopped, and there was no longer a precipice over which to fall.

It was frightening, exhilarating. Sound went quiet in his throat. His heart froze mid-beat, his heaving lungs seized. All sensation, sound, light ceased. He was alone.

No. He was an angel, and eternal. His mortal corporation might be so compelled, but he had known Time before Time knew itself. He quelled his panic, let himself drift until the endless moment turned peaceful for mind as well as body.

A quiet sound, far away.

“Well done,” Crowley murmured. Soft touch reaching carefully into this bubble of darkness, Known but not felt in fact. “Round one to you, Principality.”

Time rushed back. He choked on his next breath, his hips juddering helplessly before subsiding on the realisation that his arousal had long-since banked. Every molecule burned as they stuttered back to life; blood churned in his veins.

How long had he been enveloped? He had no sense of it. 

Crowley’s mouth scalded at the junction of his thigh. “Again?”

“I can’t—” His fraying senses were overwrought; it was hard to disentangle what he _should_ be feeling from what he _was_. “What—?”

“Shall we take it slow?” asked the original Tempter. “Or fast?”

“I—”

“How about I choose?” Crowley crouched beside him like Fuseli’s _Nightmare,_ an erotic horror that had Aziraphale’s still-panting mouth fell open on a fresh surge of want. A snap:

Everything slowed. Crowley’s hand was on him, wet with his juices. Aziraphale could not remember being hard, but he was, gloriously so, long before the ache of blood filling him followed. He watched as Crowley’s fingers encircled him, his own delicate skin shifting with the motion, yet it was only long moments later that the silken pleasure looped through him. The rhythm of it defied all sense and expectation to seep steadily through his body, building until the pooling languor of it all threatened again to overflow. 

This time Crowley was there with him. “It’s as if I’m reading aloud to you,” he mused, “but you’re following along, three pages behind.”

The description was compelling. An image of a bed. Candlelight. Aziraphale reading, his hands careful on the leather binding, while Crowley held open pages too far ahead and his laughing voice read faster and faster until Aziraphale tossed the book aside in impatience and tumbled him to the sheets.

A snap, and in real time, every muscle strained up to meet Crowley’s pulling strokes.

“Please, I’m, _please_.”

“Fast?”

A snap, and the threatening bliss rushed in impossibly quickly.

Insensate from pleasure both experienced and foreseen, he spilled out across those beautiful hands. Crowley: the one moving point in a fixed world.

He must have dozed. Three dull chimes of the mantel-clock woke him, and when Aziraphale blinked back to himself it was to the astringence of citrus, now overlaying the musk of their bodies. 

He rolled over to find that Crowley was on his belly, half-hanging off the bed to look at something on the floor, his wings mostly away but the edges of feathers half-visible with each flicker of light from the fire in the grate. As Aziraphale watched, he munched into the last of a lemon before chasing the juice around his fingers.

He dropped his own hand down to Crowley’s side, shaped his grasp around the tempting cut of the iliac crest. Gave his rump a bit of a squeeze.

“Mmm,” said Crowley. He wriggled a bit under Aziraphale’s palm. “Hello again.”

“Hello.” He stroked gently, then more firmly when Crowley canted up encouragingly into his touch. “What has you so fascinated, my dear?”

Crowley twisted to glance at him over his shoulder. “Carpet,” he said. “Don’t stop. S’nice.” 

“You’re looking at the carpet?”

“Yup.” The demon twisted further, sliding onto his back and slithering down the bed until he was close enough to Aziraphale to suit himself. He nudged impatiently until Aziraphale replaced his hand, this time against the planes of his belly. “Yes, that’s good, there. Hmm. Carpet, yeah, great double-weft. Dead trendy now, these Ottoman rugs. Thinking about nicking it, he won’t notice, bloody nob.”

“I would’ve thought if you were going to make off with anything it would be that little Titian sketch you’ve been so admiring.”

“Plenty of stuff to go around, angel.”

Aziraphale varied his petting in order to get in a teasing pinch of his hip. “I see you’ve been keeping a hand in already. Stealing from his fruit trees?”

Crowley’s grin flashed. “Angel, I _invented_ stealing from fruit trees.”

All in good fun, but Aziraphale hadn’t even noticed the carpet. True, had he taken his eyes off Crowley while in this room at any point he’d never have heard the end of it, so he wasn’t feeling particularly bothered. It was interesting, though, how comfortably _attuned_ the demon seemed to be with this century. He’d seen him less often as its decades had progressed, true, but it was absolutely undeniable that if the seventeenth century had been thrilling, and the eighteenth had been good fun, the nineteenth was going to be fascinating _._

“I have no idea,” he mused. “How strange.”

“What’s strange?” Crowley blinked up at him.

“Not being able to guess. Not knowing what’s going to happen next. Usually history is a fairly reliable navigation tool, but I find myself quite at sea.” He laddered his fingertips up the ridges of Crowley’s ribs, and rubbed gently at his pectorals, carefully avoiding the knot of ancient scar tissue burnt above his heart. “A dying King, an empire in flux. New ideas, inventions, investments.”

“There’s always something new, angel.”

“Twas ever thus. Yes, I suppose. Only...this house, though, this place. So much going on. It’s made me feel suddenly off-kilter, like your time cleverness. As though the pace of the world is speeding up and I’m still plodding along.”

Crowley propped himself up on his elbows, hair a mess and mouth kiss-swollen. “You’ve gone maudlin,” he accused.

He laughed, self-deprecating, tracing up into the divot at the base of Crowley’s throat. “I think I may have come so hard that I’ve lost all reason.”

“Not like you had any to begin with,” Crowley grumbled. He crooked his finger. “Get over here. Stop being a tease, for Satan’s sake, I thought you were meant to be _benevolent_. Tell me again how clever I am—and while you’re at it, nipples.”

“You’re very clever,” Aziraphale said, on a dutiful tweak.

Crowley’s head tilted back into the pillows, but the lines of his smirk were still visible. “Harder. And more detail in your flattery.”

He hummed under his breath, gave the waning hearth a polite suggestion to make more of an effort, and pressed his palms down to give proper service.

“Your ingenuity, it’s miraculous.”

Delight: “Blasphemy.”

“No,” he said, “Just the nearest words I have.” He dug in his thumbs.

“Nnngh. By the way, have I mentioned yet this century that I really appreciate all that medical training you did back in the day? Very handy, your knowledge of the human body.”

“You have, once or twice. Although,” Aziraphale continued, “I swear every time I touch you I find new musculature that makes me think you might not actually be human.”

A chuckle, ending in a gasp. “You’re something else.”

Aziraphale thought of the woods, the deer, the predator.

Clearly Crowley did too. The demon shifted underneath his hands, quickening, restless, as he curled a hand across Aziraphale’s forearm. “Do you have any idea how irresistible you are?”

He didn’t, but he found that he wanted to hear.

Crowley traced indigo ink, chasing the feathers of the dove, and didn’t say anything else for the moment. 

Ah. Aziraphale pushed his hands up warm muscles until he could curve them around Crowley’s shoulders. He reached to smooth them down to the centre of his back, to the ghostly roots of his wings. In the renewed light from the fire he could see their faint outline, spread underneath Crowley like a finely-feathered cloak at risk of becoming rumpled. The demon had clearly exhausted his reserves if he’d left them like this. 

“Would you like help to put them away, dearheart?”

Crowley’s pupils were wide and dark, staring up at him.

He felt very soft, as he stared back; very close.

It took only a whisper of Will to caress them back into their place. Crowley fisted the bedclothes, mouth opening silently, eyes shuttering but remaining fixed on Aziraphale’s face.

He looked so—

When the next sinuous shift of Crowley’s body jostled against him, he moved instinctively, caging in the demon, trying to keep him where he was wanted.

Crowley hissed—a drawn out, desperate sort of noise—and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. He turned his face to the side to lick at Aziraphale's bicep, tongue rasping, teeth nipping lightly then with intent.

Aziraphale had always enjoyed the demon’s tendency to bite. He pressed his weight into the mattress with one hand, the other planted firmly on Crowley’s chest to hold him in place. His knees braced tightly to either side of his thighs, making sure Crowley was unable to shift from this very satisfying position. 

Such dangerous things he was thinking, sentiments that began with _mine_ and ended with _yours_. Crowley’s expression spoke for them, flickering from chagrin to something voracious, prideful, vulnerable. The stain of colour was sharp—from his cheeks, down his throat, spreading underneath the palm at his chest. The humid heat rising from his body was headier than the tropic house.

Contrary and beautiful, so wonderfully, breathtakingly _here_ with him. Aziraphale thought of the sculpture gallery: of arms more perfect than marble looping about his neck; the pliable weight pulled against him; the silken hair tipped back against his chest.

In the present, Crowley lifted a palm to his cheek, brushed two fingers over his bottom lip until Aziraphale opened to suck. “Angel,” he whispered. “You’re so _strong_.”

The pride in Crowley’s voice sizzled against every one of his senses. Aziraphale laved at the fingers cradled in his mouth, so warm with their intermingled tastes, wanting too to be tasting Crowley’s spreading smile. 

“Cast iron. My unbreakable, unbendable angel.”

Tendrils of heat slithered up his spine, spreading out through his veins, across his corporation. Aziraphale bit down, gently. Treasured the answering gasp.

“Touch me.” Crowley’s mouth parted, his breath beginning to shorten. The pads of his fingers dragged against Aziraphale’s tongue as Crowley pulled them free, impatient. Those fingers glistened obscenely as the demon ran them across his own chest, over the scar, across his nipple, to tweak much harder than Aziraphale had dared. 

Aziraphale groaned, and rutted down, experimentally, between the thighs he’d pinned. His body, well-used from their previous exertions, thrummed and twinged as his muscles tightened and the friction built, but in a way that urged _continue,_ not _stop_.

Crowley writhed, thighs splaying to press quadriceps hard against where he was still caged. Oh, he had gorgeous legs; Aziraphale had always thought so. As they were now, with their long, firm muscles, firelit with strands of auburn hair. Or when she was a woman—the flash of an ankle, the veiled curves of thigh and calf. Aziraphale pressed back, not giving an inch, enjoying the moment when Crowley let himself relax and go still.

“Like cast iron,” Crowley repeated, sounding drunk now with pleasure. Debauched, he looked now; seemed delighted at the thought. “Fuck, angel, if you could have _seen_ yourself earlier. Gorgeous.”

Said the demon who had bent Time to suit his bidding, who had taken an angel to heights of rapture that defied description in mortal words. Said the demon who made every atom of existence brighter, more solid, more _real_ when he was there. Aziraphale kissed demurral into Crowley’s shoulder. “If you want more, my dear, you need only ask. No flattery required.”

A sighed laugh: honest, adoring, rueful. “Anything you want to give to me, I’ll take.”

And that he knew as much as he could know anything. On this plane, in the next, all the way down to the most secret, hidden parts of themselves, he knew that Crowley desired all of him, all from him.

“Wanton demon.”

“Greedy angel,” Crowley countered.

Yes, he _was_ greedy. There was such sublime joy in taking. He smiled again, couldn’t stop smiling, as he lowered his body down to kiss him. They rolled, Crowley sliding on top to pin him down as soon as he could gain advantage.

“There we are,” Aziraphale murmured between kisses. “There’s your strength too.”

Crowley gasped. He ground down.

"Mmm?" Aziraphale licked his mouth. He kissed him hard, then on a breath of laughter, teased, "Feels like iron to me."

"W-wrought iron." Another gasp. "Bent under fire. It's you, you're the soldier—”

His tentative hand curled down to stroke the sensitive skin either side of the raised bumps of the marking that She had put above Aziraphale’s heart when he was Made. Shuddering with reaction, Aziraphale strained up to brush his mouth beside Crowley's scar; messy this time, not careful.

"You—oh _fuck._ Oh—"

They both moaned.

"Yes," Aziraphale urged. "Yes, ask me—" 

Crowley's gaze seemed endless, in the half-light. He said, low, very clear, “Give me more then, angel. I’m asking.”

So he did. Of course, he did.

The flooding tide of the demon’s power echoed along his corporate and incorporate Self, finding purchase and pulling his own power free. The careful knots holding him tightly bound frayed, unpicked and unravelled. Crowley clutched their bodies together and urged him out and through, as deeply as Aziraphale could dare let himself go here on Earth. Heat first, a rising wall of it; a hot wind. The beating of a thousand wings, the opening of a thousand eyes. 

“More.”

In the swirling starry darkness at the centre of the demon, he could see fracture points, how thinly his base metal had indeed been stretched. But he could also See the cunningly intricate architecture of his bracing, his girding, the alloys and the age-hardening, and how he’d worked himself until so he _could_ take more.

Mercy, more, _more_.

Their edges softened and greyed together, interleaving, interwoven, and when he came back to his mortal self he found that their bodies were interleaving, interwoven, too. Crowley braced against him, hips working urgently over him, eyes wide, face open and happy.

Aziraphale loved him so.

And in the aftermath, curled messily together, his cried-out name still echoing pleasingly in the space between sound and memory, he heard his Name ring out again.

**A̸̸̵̪͚͑͘͜Z̴̴̴͔͙͒̈́͜͠I̵̵̵͍̺̠͋̿͝R̴̴̵͖͓̠͊͊̚A̴̵̴̟̝͓͐̔P̵̵̸̦̼̽͘H̸̵̴̘̼̓͋A̴̴̴̼̻̘̔̐͘E̴̸̵͚̺̪̒̓͘L̴̵̴͚͍̝͑͝**

* * *

Buttoning his trousers, his hands would not stop trembling. He took up a robe. He wrapped it about himself.

“I need—” He had no idea. He could not think. Inside him, cold overtook recent pleasure. Where he had been so warm, so ablaze, where the hot exhaustion of well-worked muscle had ached, frost started to scour.

“My room,” he managed, looking up and skating away from Crowley’s half-lidded gaze. Too dear. Too precious. “I’ll be—”

“Angel.” Lazy, affectionate. Unbearable. Unbearable. “Come back to bed. The books can wait, surely.”

Aziraphale couldn’t look at him. Daren’t. Blindly, he found his way out. In his room objects came into focus. He stared at his boots, at a pile of books, at the bed he had never lain in. The camellias in their bowl, ghost-white in the first pearl of morning, too much like water lilies. His ears were still ringing. Tinnitus aurium. He understood perfectly. He had been a medical man: a mortal corporation could not process those harmonics. No warning.

She had called his name.

She had spoken to him.

Was Augustine, with his mortal scrabbling at meaning, close to the matter? Time resided with God. He and Crowley had taken it as their plaything, bent it in service of carnal, corporeal desire—

No, some small part of him pleaded, protested, theirs was not only desire. Never had it been only desire. Even with his thoughts in disarray, he could keep the truth of love. Surely. That was what he was made for. For love. Cast strong to love all creation, with none proscribed. 

He sat on the bed, clasped his hands together, fingers interlacing. There was a great rent in the fabric of his thoughts, and each time he reached to steady the pieces, it unravelled further. 

In the moment, he had seen Crowley forged like a blade, like a part of himself. 

_Aziraphael_ , She said.

From the chaos, one thread pulled and slid through the tangle into his grasp: the longevity of his feelings for Crowley. The skein wove back in time, light and dark by turns, disquiet and certainty, intimacy, friendship, collegiality, an Arrangement, happenstance, surprise, overturned assumptions, the instinct of their beginning—hundreds of moments, thousands of years. Perhaps never holy, but always with Grace and always, he hoped, within the realm of Her love. 

Why had he heard her now?

With a low noise of despair he turned around the room, desperate for focus, to know what to do. The creeping chill hollowed into his core. He could not push back panic, could not wave fear away. In the gloom, they coalesced, taking shape, but not for him. Just three rooms away, he could feel Crowley curled in sleepy warmth. He could feel the echoes of his touch on his skin, inside him, around him, and the thrum of it chased away any clarity of thought.

The dread, he realised, was for Crowley.

A leftover arrow from the afternoon sat on the table, pointing to the window, and outside, the dawn stretched gold fingers up over the hills.

Mist in patches, and the earliest-stirring birds. Aziraphale left the careful bordering paths to stride out across the grass, taking in air in cool lungfuls, the dawn chorus softening the fading ring in his ears. The Cascade added a splashing accordance. In another time, he might find that rhythmic, soothing. Now he watched the progress of water down the slope with a mind to their earlier exchange on insurance. Protection. Strategy against discovery.

(“Had always just reckoned on crowing I’d tempted an angel into bed, to be honest. None of the top brass have managed _that_. Proof of my superlative demonic prowess.”

“You think that’ll go down well, then,” Aziraphale had replied, flatly. “One-upping the boss.”

Crowley had twitched, made a noncommittal noise. “Eh. You can hardly brag your way out of a confrontation either.”

Aziraphale never had any intention of that. “I’m an angel. I would have recourse to higher—well. To other motives.”

Conversation turned to silence. There was no need to elaborate. Crowley would never hear of redemption, and Aziraphale had long since considered those thoughts like that original apple: glittering, and poisonous.)

The sanctions of Heaven and Hell were one thing. He could admit some minor anxiety for himself. He had no wish to be at the end of reprimands from his insensible siblings who were so little amongst humanity. They had no understanding. There was no ineffability amongst his fellow angels.

But _She_ had spoken to him. _Aziraphael_ , She had said. 

_What more might She do to Crowley?_

His own anxiety was nothing, nothing, compared to the _terror_ he felt for Crowley, and nothing compared to the jagged responsibility he carried for their intimacy— 

(“We can be how we want,” he had murmured, cradling Crowley to him in the sparkling lantern lights of Vauxhall Gardens.)

His weakness in the face of indulging the demon, of holding himself back—

(“Give me more then, angel. I’m asking.”)

Refusals were unthinkable, when he knew what it meant to cradle Crowley underneath his wings. When he knew the sight and the smell and the feel of him, laid out and exposed. When the very crevices of his fingers ached to be sated with the demon’s hair drawn fine between them, his playful voice in his ear, mouth at his throat.

If only he might not _know_. 

In his palm, he stroked the arrow’s fletching over and over, and it abraded at the raw core of him, the memory of Crowley’s encompassing spread of feathers, not hours ago dragging torturous and teasing across the back of his knees.

The memory of Crowley so near, of those sensations so intoxicating, made him stumble. Something like a sob escaped him. The moment gave him pause, and he righted himself, picking up the arrow from where it had fallen and brushing himself off. Smooth cloth beneath his hands, he found he still wore the robe he had grabbed in blind panic, a thin undershirt and trousers no defense against the morning chill. Deep, inky silk with a copper lining, the robe was embroidered with floral designs to match the bedroom’s fashionable wallpaper, three flamboyant parrots Crowley’s own addition. It smelled of him, of waterlilies and moss and lemons.

Aziraphale cast it off and away, calling some semblance of his own clothes around him. This could not do. It could not. He could not keep them safe if he could not master himself more closely. He thought to take himself away—but, no it was focus for his mind that he craved, and across the lawn, the archery targets were still set up from the previous day. 

That would do. Something must do. He had made a target out of that whom he loved.

The world fell still as he sighted the mark.

(“What’s the point?” Crowley’s tone was as dead as Aziraphale had ever heard. “Nothing, but nothing, worth remembering from that shit show. Death and Pestilence had their finest hour in the fourteenth century. No need for me to keep a record of it as well. Show me how you do it, angel.”

Aziraphale, agreeing with the sentiment, had shown him what he had painstakingly taught himself—though he could, for obvious reasons, no longer remember the original purpose to these investigations in memory.

“So, just the specifics, yeah? Will I notice the gap?”

“Not if you do it like this,” Aziraphale had told him. “Plenty of human history’s a bit foggy around the edges now, don’t you find?”

Crowley had laughed for the first time in an age, a relief; yes, this was a good idea.

“Those long stretches where they just moved around munching on shrubs and throwing a spear at a lame antelope. Can’t say as I could tell one century from another.”

The trick, Aziraphale had explained, was in the pulling out of the particulars. Tracing the spoiled connections back from the damage, but leaving enough loose edges that the mind could darn over.)

The dawn light concentrated in the gold centre, all his other surroundings indistinct as he loosed the arrow from bare fingers, not caring how the shaft scraped the bare knuckles of his bow hand.

In flight behind the arrow went every sensation of corporeal pleasure he’d had that evening. The transcending breach into other planes. The interwoven bliss of their forms no longer tied to the material world, the deepest knowledge of the foundations of Crowley’s form. The gentlest kiss across dusted freckles, the answering delight.

It struck the target and quavered. Aziraphale stared at what he’d done, choking back a cry. Loss seared through him in an instant, and just as quickly, burned away. He looked down, surprised not to see charcoal streaking his shirtsleeves, then wondered why he’d had so extreme a thought. 

He took up another arrow, loosed it. This time, he thought of nothing. 

Another, and another. He was calmer now. A full six he shot into the target, letting his pulse slow between each one, none imbued with any direction beyond flight. He set aside the bow to retrieve the batch. Pulling the last arrow from the centre, a dusty grey cloud of embers puffed up from the tear in the straw, and by the time he returned to the mark he knew that his first shot would not be enough. No matter he’d banished away the robe; he could still feel the satin glide of Crowley’s hands on him, gentle on an elbow, taking his coat in a London square, clasped around his even as he uttered a blessing.

Again he drew, and remembered, and let loose from his mind every quiet corner in a tavern, each carriage ride pressed close and talking closer, each admission of fondness and admiration given and received, spoken aloud and admitted to himself. This time the pain was broad and wrenching, tangled knots pulled out from every part of his mind and experience. The last broke free only a moment before the arrow struck centre again, and as it flew from him he caught the smell of olives in a desert, and Crowley’s kind hand on his shoulder after a man was killed.

He sat, then. Caught his breath. Across the grounds, he saw the sunrise glinting sharply off the glass houses, and thought he ought to take a look inside them before his visit ended. 

After a time, the sun crested the eastern hills, and Aziraphale watched it, too distracted to heed how the brightness bleached out his vision. What a habit this corporation was, its fragile components at the mercy of injury. He blinked, damage restored, and found he could breathe slower now. His heart thrummed on, millennia of practice.

Up on the skyline, the trees shifted in a breeze. They drew his gaze around the estate, to the rockery, the hunting tower. The high ridge reminded him of another, close to the coast on the South Downs. A walk with Crowley not too long ago. The demon had insisted he scatter beech seeds in his wake, laughing, refusing to explain. 

Beyond the far fences, deer grazed.

(“They think you’re a predator.”)

He skated his gaze away again, unsure of where the disconcerting thought had come from, back to the house. There was a wall covered in climbing foliage, newly in bud, vines trained up to bring a burst of perfume to the bedrooms.

And that was enough, sense-memory a traitor to the cause: enough for the scent of damask roses to permeate his being, to overflow his palm unbidden. Cream petals striped with crimson in a handful he held out to Crowley, a shared secret, a consolation in grief, an admission of affection.

The bow was in his hand before he could stop himself, and the arrow, set aside on the dewy grass, nocked in place for this last. But he turned away from the target, set it at his back. He did not want to know where it landed. He did not want the temptation. 

He had no intention of retrieving this arrow. 

(“Come on. You’re not seriously making your own arrows. Top tip, Duke’s loaded, probably has spares.”

At that he held up the first of his shafts for Crowley’s inspection. The branch of Douglas fir, stripped clean and smooth. Notches cut for the fletching. Prismatic, glorious demon feather, neat shapes snugly fitted to the end. 

Crowley’s mouth had opened in shock. He had turned away and for a moment Aziraphale thought it was in offence, but:

“No half measures with you, angel.” Crowley swivelled back with a grin of delight, unspooling a red silk thread from the brocade on his waistcoat.)

He pulled up the bow. The red thread was a bright scarlet binding between feather and wood. It flashed colour past him as he drew back. Red in his vision, too, as he saw that his knuckles were scraped raw and bleeding.

(“You have blood in your hair,” Crowley said, his gaze intent, his fingers on Aziraphale’s brow the gentlest touch he had ever felt.)

Aziraphale shut his eyes, and let go.

  
  


_**End of Part III** _

  
  


### Authors notes

**Crowley’s bedroom at Chatsworth  
** Something like the Leicester [bedroom](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Leicester_Bedroom%2C_Chatsworth_House_-_Derbyshire%2C_England_-_DSC03378.jpg), with a fuck-off canopy and a gorgeous Oriental rug.

**Fuseli’s** **_The Nightmare  
_ ** Their twentieth century Jung/Freud arguments were never as sullen as the Hooke/Newton spats, but they did tend to get a bit personal. On a related note, [this painting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare) had always felt uncomfortably on the nose for Aziraphale.

**Glasshouses at Chatsworth  
** We imagined water lily hijinx in a glasshouse of our own design. In 1834 there would have been a number to choose from although the Great Conservatory had yet to be built. Here’s a fun piece about Joseph Paxton and his [glasshouses](https://www.thecultureconcept.com/the-conservatory-crystal-palaces-and-the-climate-revolution).

**Titian, That little  
** You can see why Crowley enjoyed [this](https://www.chatsworth.org/art-archives/devonshire-collections/old-master-drawings/landscape-with-riderless-horse-pursued-by-a-serpent/) one. And no, he wasn’t one of Titian’s redheads.

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 15

[Light Years](https://open.spotify.com/track/0dcKsPZVWa64MvnoCes49q?si=sScQgeGTTvqjVA33gOLC7Q)  
The National

[thousand eyes](https://open.spotify.com/track/5fJqkPtaFohDuNXWJdXyVS?si=hACxCGOxRTejR8Z8YH6cJA)  
FKA twigs

[Vivaldi Variations](https://open.spotify.com/track/3Dgmyz32dxvtxvUTPS0CUI?si=Sh3bKgyzSQ6YaTngQVkyBw) (Arr. for Piano from Concerto from Strings in G Minor, rv 156)  
Antonio Vivaldi, Florian Christl

#### Perfumes

[Wander](https://www.millerharris.com/products/wander-through-the-parks?variant=13175148937285), by Miller Harris  
Moss, ferns and stolen lemons

[La Fin du Monde](https://www.etatlibredorange.com/en/boutique/la-fin-du-monde-en/), by Etat Libre d'Orange  
Scorched joy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sorry.)
> 
> (Not sorry.)
> 
> (Share your pain with us in the comments.)
> 
> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of this chapter on Tumblr [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/620900231580696576/planning-permission). In which she discusses symbolism, writing the five senses, and a-ha authorial moments to provide maximum angst.


	16. Going South, March

_**Part IV** _

A lightning strike.

Storms in January had wreaked their toll: one of the beeches was split right to the ground, and another had taken damage in her northern branches.

Crowley moved silently around the copse, surveying the injuries from all angles. He placed a hand on the worst. Without a doubt it would have to come down. Millions of volts had boiled her sap to steam in an instant, exploding the bark and wounding the roots beyond hope. Beneath the ground, the rot had already started.

The neighbouring tree was shielded from the worst of the strike. Roots were bruised, but it would survive. The arc of lightning had sheared some upper branches, though, and he had a few hours of tree surgery ahead of him before anything else could be done on the land.

The magpies were even more unimpressed at his presence now. They worked together, one flying and cawing to distract his attention while the other tried surreptitiously to add a few final leaves to their nest. He spied it anyhow, a fine thing, well-kitted out for an imminent clutch. 

He barked out a laugh. He’d tried his own trick of distraction with Aziraphale when they’d walked here in the past; wondering, would the angel notice? Would he feel anything of Crowley’s possession of the land? Walking a reckless line, he’d never dared to let Aziraphale breach the boundary itself.

(“Throw these. ‘S a good spot for beeches.”

A long pause, and a chuckle as Aziraphale examined the teardrop-shaped pods, cracked open and germinating already. “Just carrying these about, were you?”

“Over this way, angel. Give it some oomph.”)

If Aziraphale had noticed anything awry, he’d not let on. As they picked their way companionably along the ridge he’d murmured glad tidings on the view, the hills, the sea.

Angelic blessings hadn’t saved the beech from random annihilation by electrostatic current. Symbolism was, as ever, a bitch. 

On prodding, Crowley found the dead tree was a papery husk. Sodden. Weeks of rain. No way he was clambering up on that, even with his force of Will to keep it from collapsing. Splinters, ugh. He turned to the other. A chainsaw would be quick, but it would drive away the magpies, and he wanted to make sure those upstart dinosaurs got a proper sense of their new boss. A pair of loppers and an axe would have to do for the job. 

Looking down from the branches, the scorch pattern was clearly visible, radiating out from the tree that took the brunt. Crowley balanced himself on a healthy limb, and started to move around, lopping off the damaged outer branches. It was rhythmic, absorbing labour. Just the sort of mindless movement of muscle he’d sought out the last few days. 

He’d known it would come, that call from Aziraphale. How could it not, with the angel determined to re-catalogue himself, more determined with every memory he’d found? And that Chatsworth memory, surely the tipping point of the whole fucking disaster that turned out to be the nineteenth century. 

Taking out the axe, Crowley set to work on the damage.  
  


* * *

**  
Soho, 1835**

“Angel!”

“Demon.”

There was a pinched aspect to Aziraphale’s greeting, one that caused Crowley’s blooming excitement to falter. Historically well-used to varying degrees of welcome, she persevered nonetheless, angling close for a kiss. Which would have been easier had Aziraphale been facing her, but no, he’d already turned away once the door had closed behind her.

Ah. Not an optimal welcome, then. Perhaps she’d misjudged her timing after all.

It had taken nearly six months to get over her peevishness about him sneaking off from Chatsworth like that the morning after. No kiss goodbye, no explanation. The hurt feelings had been galling; the near-fiasco with the Beckwell couple thinking they could _entrap_ the demon rather than make a deal had been nearly as problematic. 

Oh, she got it, she did. They’d been throwing around quite a bit of power and Heaven’s accounts department had probably noticed, sent a reprimand or an errand requiring immediate attention. But would it have been too much to ask for a fare-thee-well note? Or a bit of ethereal back-up, given Crowley had used too much infernal power giving him _orgasms_? 

And he’d not been in touch since, not even to give a smug _I told you so_ about Crowley’s hubris. Which was so out of the ordinary that she’d been worried enough to spend another six months of waiting to see him again just in case he needed the plausible deniability of her absence.

She’d not been able to wait a moment longer though. She’d _missed_ him, damn his eyes.

“You’ve changed your look,” Aziraphale said mildly. He surveyed her, taking in the details of her woollen day dress. “That shade of amber suits you. Do try not to knock into any of the books, will you?”

Only he could make it sound like sleeves _en gigot_ and ludicrous bell-shaped skirts were _her_ mischief. “It’s been handy for my investment projects that Mr Crowley has a sister,” she explained. “Pincer movement on the punters to speed things up.”

“You’ve always been in a hurry. Flitting about.”

Unsure how to take that, she shrugged, but the effect was probably ruined by the blessed sloping silhouette. She enjoyed all her aspects, and it was fun to play both sides with the unsuspecting humans, but no question she was going to lose her patience with women’s fashion long before her business was concluded. Besides, Aziraphale had whispered some _very_ dirty things in her ear last time they’d been together, many of which would benefit from the other Effort now that she’d forgiven him. 

Mmm, yes. The past year had clearly been good to him, and he looked to be in fine form: broad shoulders, gossamer-pale curls, pouting mouth that—

“Tea?” the angel asked.

Not exactly what she’d had in mind, but he seemed too spiky at the moment for anything more. A shame, since she was vibrating out of herself at the long-desired sight of him.

Once they were settled at the small table by the window, she asked, “How’s the collecting going?” Asking after the books was always a reliable way to cajole him out of a sulk.

Aziraphale brightened on cue. “Oh, splendidly actually, though word spreads, of course, and I’m having to fend off visitations. I’ve recently acquired some very special theatrical volumes—”

“Uh-huh,” she said, amused, “I recall.” 

She nudged their calves together invitingly; the warmth of him seeped through her stockings until he pulled away. 

He sent her a sharp look. “I’ve invested in some new equipment for restoring old bindings. I think this modern technology is just the thing.” 

She itched to inch her foot closer again, to _be_ close, but sternly told herself to behave. He clearly wasn’t in the mood. She let Aziraphale pour the tea, then dropped in three more lumps of sugar than he offered.

“Did you get my letters?” she asked, unable to resist the question given she had to restrain herself in other ways. “I’ve been corresponding with Paxton since our visit, and he’s finally got the go-ahead on the massive conservatory project. It’s going to be _huge_! I mean, it’ll take a few years to build, and I’m not sure, he thinks four boilers, but surely twice that for what they want to grow in there, exotics need a lot of love in this climate, and the glass spans alone—”

Aziraphale pointedly moved the sugar out of reach. “Letters?”

“Yes, my letters.” Her excitement was starting to wither now in the face of his lack of enthusiasm. She yanked the sugar back and impatiently tonged out another lump. “The ones I’ve been sending since I last saw you.”

He sniffed, expression closing down even more as he reached to remove the bowl. She darted her hand out, closing her fingers over his. “Angel, I’m not getting into a tug of war with you over sugar!” She lifted his hand to her lips, brushing them with the kiss she’d been longing to give him. “I’ve missed you,” she purred. She _had_ , flesh and bone and spirit. “Don’t be cross, or if you are, lift my skirts and show me properly.”

Aziraphale jerked to his feet, jerked away. The chair scraped loudly. “I haven’t been reading your letters,” he said. 

She sat there looking up at him, surprise freezing her in place. Then she caught up: “What do you mean you haven’t read my letters? What, none of them?”

She’d…she’d written a lot of things in those letters, sparked by that last night. Foolish, really, but they’d been under strict orders to combust when read (which, frankly, would have been secondary to any other combustion that their rather explicit contents had been designed to incite).

Aziraphale began pacing, his agitation clear. “Crowley, I haven’t seen you for _six years_. I understood it when you were travelling, but I haven’t read your letters because for the last year they’ve been marked _London_ and you haven’t come to see me in all that time.” He pulled his shoulders back, bracing like he expected a fight. “If you had something to say, I wanted to hear it from you directly. And now you finally drop by, acting so... so carelessly, and what am I to think?”

Dawning horror pushed all the breath pushed out of her. She very carefully reached into her reticule and pulled out the smoked glass spectacles she’d not bothered to wear to the shop, so eager had she been to set eyes on him.

_I haven’t seen you for six years._

Perhaps—perhaps it hadn’t been about work, the reason he’d left her there so abruptly a year ago. No, she told herself. _No._ She hadn’t imagined how he’d looked at her, how he had felt wrapped around her, within her _._ But she recognised this panic, this vagueness, this self-denial. He had set aside his memories of their interlude at Chatsworth because he’d long set aside things that became _difficult._

Plausible deniability, she’d thought before. In-bloody-deed.

Crowley grimaced down into her tea and shoved the glasses onto her nose. Somewhere in a grate in an upstairs room a bundle of letters caught fire alongside her expectations for evening delights. It’d be a tediously long time, she suspected, before he’d be relaxed enough again for such pleasures.  
  


* * *

**  
Mayfair, 1837**

Crowley glanced up from his examination of the sapphire, the abrupt movement and the magnification from his loupe mixing poorly enough to give him a moment of swaying vertigo. 

“Light,” he snapped, and the dim study flared as the lamp-wicks caught the hint.

He frowned out of the darkened windows overlooking Chesterfield Street, lit with its own yellow gas glow. Huh. Must have been playing around for longer than he’d realised; no wonder he couldn’t seem to set the gemstone properly into its fiddly casing.

He wiped the grease from his tools before stowing them back into their mahogany case. Put the uncooperative pocket-watch-in-progress into its lined box, and swatted absently at a tickling insect that whirred by his ear. Then he stood with the sort of groan that served him right for not moving properly for several hours. A good stretch would sort him out—the kind where he was in the privacy of his own premises, and could disarticulate his spine all the way if he pleased. And it was time for supper anyway, though without the angel about to remind him about eating, he usually forgot. The Punchbowl, perhaps?

He glanced down, mid-stretch. There was a fly on his desk. Crouched against the scroll-worked edge, dark against the baize. Unremarkable. Except for how it was utterly remarkable. He blinked carefully, eyes slitting, and the blue-bottle disappeared from sight. He blinked again and there it was, its wings faintly shimmering in the gloom. Very slowly, he lowered his arms and reached for the awl he hadn’t yet tidied away.

Up it went, hidden in his shirtsleeve. So much for tinkering with his own projects. Out of grudging obligation, he didn’t look to the door, giving the shadows their moment to coalesce. When he did swivel around, Hell had arrived.

“Crawly. You are buzzy, I zee.”

“Ugh. Crowley. Yeah, massive caseload, that’s me. Just started a big job for the, ah, Hubris division.”

Beelzebub tilted their head, red-faceted eyes glittering like the ruby he’d discarded for too many inclusions. “Hubrizz is well-served by our other agents.”

“Oh, come _on_. I literally just got all my ducks in a row on that project.”

He trailed off as their blank stare regarded him without interest. 

Prince of Hell, you’d have thought there’d be all kinds of curiosity about operations that went with that. Then again, Crowley had never understood how they assigned titles back after the Fall. Something to do with the favour of the Morningstar, he’d assumed, and he’d been naught but a tagalong that day. He’d never begrudged it though—not in the way the angel clearly did with his Upper Management.

“The Arch Fiend is dizzappointed.”

“Ah,” he said, wondering exactly where he’d slipped up. When it came to it, the specifics wouldn’t matter if they’d decided to make a general example out of him. Any level of disappointment meant sharp reprimands, after all. “In which area exactly? Lots of irons in the fire, me.”

Oops, he thought. Don’t mention the hot irons.

“You let them end zzlavery. We were all very happy with how that wazz going.”

 _And now we’ll end you_ seemed to be the sentiment at play.

“Right. Yes. So, hear me out—”

The flies buzzed around their head, refusing to settle.

“The economic and moral model was flawed.”

“Not the mizzery and the zzuffering.”

“Yep, those were proper evil. Bit of a blunt instrument though. Now, I’ve got a bill going through Parliament—get this, it’s pretty clever. We’re going to use taxpayer money to compensate the slave-owners.”

“Complicated,” said Beezlebub. It did not sound like a compliment.

“Fiendishly, though,” he countered, but it sounded weak even to him.

“The Dark Lord demands a convinzzing practical demonstration of your commitment to His cause.”

“I’m committed,” said Crowley. “Very, very committed. The debts from this will take over a century and a half to pay off. Rich get richer, get rewarded in perpetuity for all that misery and suffering you appreciated. I mean, come on, that’s evil, right?”

“Zzo you zzay.”

“Thanks for stopping by. Legislation’s through by the end of the year. I’ll swing by the office to give you a progress report, yeah? In about a decade? No need to come up here again—"

Beezlebub lifted their head, malice now putting a little expression behind their eyes. “I have my own tazzk for you, Crawly.”

“ _Crowley_.”

“You have been remizz with your adverzzary,” and they flourished their palm to examine words glistening wetly in a dark, forgotten script, “the one known azz Azziraphale.”

“I’ve hardly seen the angel—”

“Ezzactly. The miraclezz are an abomination.”

The miracles. There’d been a lot of those in the last few months, ever since the girl queen had been crowned in early summer. Lots of patriotic hullabaloo, joyous celebrations out in the streets. The fervour had filled Aziraphale’s reserves to the point where London now felt a bit like a holy city; Soho was practically _glowing_ with his delighted blessings. Not that Crowley had been out to the bookshop, of course, not with that much ethereal oomph in the air, but he could feel the angel under his skin, everywhere he went.

“What, no ezzcuzz? Coward.”

Crowley, contrary to popular belief, did actually know when to keep his mouth shut.

There was a shift in the atmosphere as Beelzebub rolled their shoulders, rubbing an arm alongside their flank rhythmically. A carrion smell wafted through the room.

He tried nonchalant. “See to the angel, stop the miracles. Sure, no problem.”

The Lord of Flies paused half-transformation, which they often did for revolting effect. “Don’t be dizzappointing, Crawly,” they said, and it was the utter _boredom_ in their voice that did for him in the end. 

Their shadow disintegrated into a thousand little shadows and disappeared.

And, with an angry twist of Crowley’s wrist, the awl embedded itself deep into the wooden surface of the desk.  
  


* * *

**  
Hyde Park, 1851**

Aziraphale was full of expansive good-humour as they strolled through the park toward the main event. His conversation ranged through his latest interests and acquisitions to the eventual question, “Whatever have you been up to in Manchester these past years?”

Demonstrating my commitment, Crowley thought. 

“No good,” he said instead. “Obviously. I thought you weren’t interested in industry?”

“Not in terms of those projects for your Head Office,” the angel replied, wrinkling his nose with distaste. “Mills and such. But I admit, I’m quite intrigued by this exhibition. It’s been ages since I’ve seen you this excited about something.”

Excited probably wasn’t enough of a description, though he felt a bit shy, admitting, “I’ve seen it three times already. And bought a few patents. Only a few, mind.”

“All the novel amusements of the age in one place for your delectation.” A laugh of shared delight. “How marvellous for you, my dear.”

Crowley smirked at him, feeling ridiculous, because it _was_ marvellous for him and now he got to show the angel all the best bits.

“Look! Daguerreotypes! Have you had one taken yet? Ooh, Crowley, shall we?”

And that was it, he was done for. Perhaps it was the summer’s day, its perfect weather inspiring bright good humour. Or the effervescence that was human ingenuity and inspiration, none of it needing occult or ethereal assistance to come to germination. It could have been the discontent from those whose ideas hadn’t quite captured the public’s imagination, or the prideful spite from those whose had. It might have been the harmony between him and the angel: a rare, shared moment of accord where so many moments had felt strangely fragile for some time.

No matter; the values for _x_ and _y_ were inconsequential. Their sum still brought him to snap for privacy, to pull Aziraphale under a tree, to kiss him.

Perhaps it was the same impulsive joy of the summer’s day that made the angel’s stiff body suddenly, _finally_ melt against his own, his thighs parting like a dream to the insistent push of a knee between.

“ _Oh,_ ” he gasped into Crowley’s seeking mouth, and hearing the greedy little sound after so long sent Crowley mad.

He crowded Aziraphale back against the tree, his hands coming up to bracket his lovely face. He stroked the lines around his mouth with his thumbs; deepened the kiss with his urgent mouth.

“Please.” He couldn’t stop his hips from pressing forward. All of Aziraphale was soft, yielding against him; he had been lonely, had wanted this, while he stalked through his rounds of the cotton warehouses, while he’d kept a wary eye over his shoulder for the increasingly hostile demands from Hell.

“I’ve missed you.” He breathed the admission into the line of the angel’s throat, scenting a new cologne and a familiar lover. “I’ve missed your _body_.” 

The separation was so sharply sudden it took a moment for his senses to catch up. Aziraphale’s expression was stern, everything pliable now tense and forbidding. “Stop it, what are you doing?”

Befuddled, panting, he couldn’t find any response.

Aziraphale didn’t wait for one. “I want an explanation for your behaviour,” he snapped. “This isn’t the first time you’ve said things like that, tried to _do_ things. I vividly recall how you propositioned me after the coronation with the flimsiest excuses. _Expend some of that energy_ , you said! I could hardly fathom it! It was just as well that you left to go up north. I find it very hurtful when you’re like this.”

Stupid with lust, dumb with confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, neither do I.” The angel looked uncomfortable, and irritated at having been made to be so. His lips were kiss-reddened, his face flushed. “We’re friends, and yet, I feel you are trying your best not to be.”

“Trying not to be friends,” Crowley repeated, attempting to make sense of it. 

“I must say, you’ve been appalling. Given our Arrangement, and long-standing association, I should think you could at least show me some professional courtesy. And then there’s this _touching_ you’ve been doing. At first I thought it was a game, then I wondered if you were making a show of us for Hell, but with all of your behaviour lately, I’ve feared—”

Crowley felt all the blood drain from his face as the insinuation struck home. “After all this time? You still think I’m,” he could barely say it aloud, “you think I’m _tempting_ you? Trying to _ssseduce_ you? What, into _Falling?_ ”

The angel looked miserable. “What else am I to think?” 

What.

(Aziraphale, stretched out on his belly in front of the fire. All luscious, the dimples at his arse, the creased place behind his knees. The sturdy spread of his shoulder blades and the space between them that Crowley couldn’t seem to stop bruising with his mouth and nails. He bit down, growling eagerly as he filled his mouth with the generous roll of flesh. He couldn’t control his scales, he could feel them rippling out where his chest pressed across the angel’s back; but that was fine, welcomed, the sensation making Aziraphale arch upward on an answering moan.)

What.

(“You’re all right,” the angel murmured, stroking back his sweaty hair, holding him as he shuddered and spent and lost himself. “I’m with you. I’ve got you.”)

What.

(He’d never seen Aziraphale look so _human,_ dishevelled and sex-drunk. And the way he was beaming, like Crowley had made him _happy._ It made him feel—)

He swiped his sleeve viciously across traitorous, burning eyes.

“Oh.” The angel sounded surprised, confused. “Oh dear.”

A hand on his shoulder but nothing of comfort in the touch. He shrugged it off with a violent twitch of his muscles.

“Won’t you tell me what’s wrong? Come, sit here.” The hands again, strong and insistent, pulling him down to the lawn.

“You don’t remember,” said Crowley dully. He stared at the grass. The summer crowds had left it patchy, brown. 

“Remember? Oh? Ah. I see.”

Aziraphale hated to be reminded about his selective memory, Crowley knew from experience. But he could see, so clearly now, that it was memory at the heart of this.

It had been bearable when he’d thought it had been only Chatsworth, the deep-seated warmth of over a century of closeness sustaining him even through these colder recent years. But it wasn’t, was it?

Not only one encounter, but much of their time as lovers, perhaps even _all_ of it.

No need to ask, to interrogate; he knew it now, down to his deepest Self. Aziraphale had trained as a surgeon, had been so brilliant with his scalpel and his unswerving self-belief that he’d once cheated Death himself. And he’d never, ever hesitated to rid himself of unwanted burdens and to salt the earth behind. If the angel had wanted every passionate, every _loving_ memory gone, he would have cut them from himself with surgical precision.

If the excision had left ragged and bleeding edges in Crowley, those were his own wounds to tend. 

He should have expected this. 

(Had he really expected anything more? Foolish demon.) 

Aziraphale was awkwardly petting his arm.

“Please don’t touch me,” he managed.

“I hadn’t realised about a memory,” the angel was saying. “Is that what’s been amiss? I’m sorry. It has been awful between us, hasn’t it? Here’s an idea: let’s agree to set this silly trouble aside, and go back to being friends.”

Crowley jerked up his head, rounding on him. “I don’t,” he snarled, “go backward.”

Aziraphale reached out, looking so upset, so vulnerable, that panic choked him. He couldn’t let him touch him again; he’d lose his resolve, he’d capitulate. 

He staggered to his feet. “Don’t ask me to go back.” He’d beg if he had to. He begged. “Don’t ask that.”

“Are you all right?”

“No.” The word dropped heavy between them. “I’m not all right.”

Aziraphale twisted his hands then set them in his lap. “Would you—can you tell me why? Back to where? Hell?”

Satan save him. He sank back down to the grass, scrubbing fingers through his hair. “We came here together. You walked this road alongside me. You held my fucking _hand._ You took the fucking _lead._ ”

Aziraphale opened his mouth then closed it, and shook his head, uncomprehending. 

He laughed, tasting nothing but bitterness. His blood was rushing in his ears: a reverberating, high-pitched whine.

“Crowley, be careful. Your power, it’s—”

He was laughing, and he couldn’t stop. Somewhere in the vicinity of the Crystal Palace, human voices raised.

 _“Crowley!_ ”

He rocked sideways from the force of the harmonics, the shove of pure Will that silenced him. The whine rattled and died. Dizzy, it took him a moment to realise the noise had been from the Crystal Palace itself, metal and glass vibrating to breaking point from the force of his despair.

Everything good gets ruined, he thought.

(“This probably isn’t a very good idea,” Aziraphale mused over a scandalously late breakfast. His eyes were bloodshot from the opium and there was a blueish bite mark on his throat that kept drawing Crowley’s stare. “But you’re such a gift, my serpent, that it seems like the right one.”)

Crowley forced himself to look up at the worried face looming above him. His fussy, diffident angel, the one he’d known and liked for thousands of years before they’d let themselves feel so, _so_ much more. 

Aziraphale seemed shaken, but still he held out a trembling hand, waiting for Crowley to take it. Once, he’d held up a wing to shelter him from the rain.

It hurt, the bastard. _Such_ a bastard. But he’s still my friend, he told himself. And that’s so much. It will have to be enough.

Finally, when he could, Crowley said, “Whatever the memories were, Aziraphale, I’m sorry you were afraid.” 

He made himself mean it, and he let himself reach out.  
  


* * *

**  
Present**

_Thud_.

The largest branch hit the ground, and the reverb on the quiet hillside sent the magpies into a temper of furious protest.

“Yeah, exactly,” Crowley agreed, as they croaked themselves out in an awkward duet with his axe blows. “Shit happens. You just have to roll with it.”

He _had_ tried to roll with it: even with the knowledge of Aziraphale’s avid response to his kiss. Only a moment, and an avalanche of repudiation in its aftermath. That disconnect had been so strong, and so, so compelling to pick apart; had the angel still felt something, deeply buried somewhere, of their intimacy? In the end, it had been all too painful, too exhausting.

He stood, and padded along the branch to the end. Stretching, reminding the beech it was up to the challenge of holding his weight, he surveyed the land. The boundary markers sat where he had placed them, a score of centuries past. The yews were in flower. The river was a grey-brown meander, the tide flowing out. Cycles of return.   
  


* * *

**  
Soho, 1862**

He hesitated at the threshold, considering the small handwritten sign fastened to the door. Opening hours that never opened, scribbled out by Crowley at the angel’s behest, over an excess of port-infused hilarity.

(“You realise,” Crowley said, squinting down at what he’d written, “that you’re planning to be open every third Maundy Thursday, but only when it coincides with a new moon?”

“So often? Oh, that won’t do at all. Start over, there’s a good chap.”)

He slouched against the stone pillar, savouring the last of the afternoon’s heat through his coat. He’d been so _proud_ of Aziraphale when he’d bought this place. Had even felt some pride in himself, that he’d had an idea that had done them both some good. Having this refuge here when he needed it had been important. As much so as having the angel, maybe.

The door creaked behind him.

“Crowley?”

He didn’t look around, not wishing more terrible words. “I’ve come to say goodbye.”

Footsteps. A shoulder brushed his as Aziraphale came beside. “You’re going again?”

He nodded curtly.

“Back up to Manchester? Not, surely, to Hell?”

“Nah.”

There was no point; that was the entire point. In Hell they were angry, would stay angry. The world was _moving_ now, the pace of this century outstripping their understanding. They wouldn’t _listen_ to Crowley as he tried to be helpful, to show them where its fulcrum lay. They wanted too little, entirely out of scale with the scope of modernity, and they wanted to punish him for their disappointments.

It reminded him that the demons, the angel, were all from the same stock.

An hour before, standing with Aziraphale in St James Park, he had swallowed his better judgement and asked for help. All those years ago at Chatsworth, Aziraphale had offered a weapon of last resort: holy water. So precious a poison that it could only come from the sole angel on Earth. If the depths of their collusion had been found out, it would have been annihilation to them both for such a betrayal. And yet, Aziraphale had offered it once, unbidden, trusting. 

(“The _holy_ trick with water, Crowley.”)

He’d never meant to take him up on it. Not until Duke Hastur had come stalking him through Spinningfields, and he’d known that the patience of his masters had run out. He’d raced back down to London, desperation driving him only to discover that it was too late. Along with so much else of what they had been together, Aziraphale had set aside his knowledge of that trust and had not wished to renew it. All of it, eroded to nothing. 

Satan only knew what the angel had thought he’d do with the holy water. The moment played for him again: the incriminating request, the stricken response. The sudden, brutal death-knell of _no._

Crowley respected _no_.

 _No_ was within Aziraphale’s gift, and he had exercised it before.

But so, too, was disappointment, for Crowley. He could be disappointed, too. 

And angry. For the loss of so much time. For the accusation: _fraternising._

“I’m tired.” He ran his hand over the smooth curve of Portland stone, watching the carriages on the street. “Very tired.”

To his right, the angel stirred at the admission. “What will you do?”

He hesitated. “Something different.”

He hadn’t made up his mind until that moment, but the release of tension he’d felt at this threshold made the idea coalesce. He couldn’t be welcome here anymore in the way he longed to be. But he knew a place where he _could_ be safe. Where he could be himself, and where only the sun and the wind and the birds would dare stand in judgement. And maybe, one day, Aziraphale would come there, and maybe it would be Crowley’s turn to make _him_ feel welcome, like _he_ belonged.

“I think—” He felt for the truth of it. “I think I’ll be gone for some time. But—I’ll see you again.” 

Crowley turned to look at him.

The angel was so bloody beautiful when he smiled.

By the estuary, the mist was still rising. Moving himself there, through the aether, depleted him beyond recovery. He stumbled, choked, then he was sliding through the grass, reduced to mere existence. His thoughts filtered slowly, losing sense and intent beyond the need to rest. In the deep of the ancient barrow, all that was fierce and raw was blunted, calm. His coils gently twisted until they settled back against dry leaves. The spin of the earth soothed him; every moment lasted an age. Brumation took him. He was almost, almost, at peace.

Sixty-five years passed.

Crowley slept.  
  


* * *

**  
Present**

In the New Year, he’d put away the watch that he’d worn through the shambles of Armageddon. A favourite, but if he happened to glance as it turned to three—no thanks. No need to be reminded of how it felt to have doom injected straight into his very being. Two could play at that game of doing away with memories, even if his own approach only involved a different accessory.

Today he’d shoved one of his old pocket watches in his jeans. He rubbed the casing, realising it was the very one he’d been working on when he’d had that visit from the Lord of the Flies. No wonder on the reminiscence, then. The ticking was unacceptably loud to modern ears—great fun in a quiet gallery—and oddly reassuring background noise as he cleared away the branches down the slope. Time heals all wounds, the humans loved to say, and there was some truth in it if you could take the time. Or in his case, if you could spend a few decades in the deepest state of unbeing that your Self would allow without disintegrating at the subatomic level.

Crowley stopped to contemplate the barrow. It was marginal in profile when seen against the rolling curves of the whole property, but he knew it was there and he intended to keep it intact. He liked sharing his plot of land with this anonymous pair of long-dead humans. Liked that their bones had kept watch for him in his long slumber. That the rudimentary circlet of bronze one of them wore around a wrist had felt cool and grounding when he turned, every few years, in the space beneath the earth.

Liked that when he woke, and eventually worked himself back to his human body, he knew time again. Time, and possibilities. When he’d tasted the air, the world had been scorched, and sweaty, and rampant with change. He’d felt eager to get out there, to see what was going on.

He crouched over top of it, and patted the soil. A gift for good service, he thought, and let his watch settle through the earth into the chamber. 

A decent nap had put some perspective on the angel’s behaviour, but when Crowley had waded into the twentieth century he’d known himself well enough to keep his distance at first. So for those first years, he only put out occasional feelers, content that the golden glow in the East (which was geographically accurate; Crowley was dead keen on Chicago in the twenties) was still as strong as ever.

Perspective didn’t stop him wondering, in maudlin moments over the decades, about _why_. Why Aziraphale yanked out his memories of Chatsworth so swiftly, so completely. What had happened to make him erase all of that closeness, so much of it, over so long? 

Time had passed, with her balmy breeze. Now, Crowley was convinced that Aziraphale’s actions had never had much, if anything, to do with him. Whatever it was, it was the angel’s own albatross. (Bloody stupid expression, that, but then he’d not really got on with Coleridge.) Whatever the missing pieces, the best he could hope for was that Aziraphale could find places for them to fit. 

The Bentley made a crunching sound as he shifted gears to turn onto the A27. “Hey you,” he patted the steering wheel, “leave the anxiety to the pro.”

Traffic was uncharacteristically light on the way to Southampton, in the way it usually was when he wanted to get somewhere fast. Aziraphale would probably say that was all the time.

(“—too fast for me, Crowley.”)

Aziraphale was quite often a fucking idiot.

He remembered looking at that ugly thermos flask in his hands, the colours warped by the garish Soho lighting. 

Thinking: what does this mean? 

Thinking: does he _remember_? 

Blurting out: “Should I thank you?”

Pressing the matter: “—wherever you want to go—”

And who did that make the fucking idiot, then? Of course Aziraphale didn’t remember that it was _he_ who had offered his protection, holy and deadly. Protection offered free and blithe. Of course the angel didn’t remember that for a time it was _he_ taking the reins, going so fast.

(“Perhaps one day—”)

Crowley had held on to that, through the end of the world, and out the other side.

The Bentley ceased her crunching noises, and he drove on, thoughts turning back to the now. To the shipment of architectural steel and disgracefully rare hardwood he was off to pick up.

To the future. 

But when he pulled into the forecourt of an industrial estate filled with vans and heavy goods vehicles, there was an ominous, jealous rumble from the engine.

Crowley snorted. “Oh, pipe down. Don’t need more flighty drama queens in my life. Anyway, it’s not that you can’t take the tonnage, darling, it’s the damage to the paintwork...” He trailed off from his reassurances, looking keenly at the shiny red cab of a sixteen-wheeler.

By the time he’d sauntered up to a slightly more modest but fittingly butch Mercedes and hoisted himself into the cab, the Bentley had taken herself off on her own business.

The Port of Southampton provided a boost to his baseline mood, despite the giddy anticipation from the pensioners streaming on board a Nordic cruiseliner. Dock workers risking limbs on dodgy loading equipment, the anxiety of logistics clerks with impossible margins, and the ever-present rage that most humans felt—whatever their immigration status—around border control officials. A toxic, briny shot of intensity.

Crowley had long considered himself a citizen of the world and had taken an anti-border stance on personal principle. Credit where due, though. The humans policed their imaginary little lines with a rigmarole that was both byzantine and vile. 

But Customs and Duties Payable—that was a different story altogether. A rousingly admirable bit of inducement to sin, if he did say so himself. Temptations all through the system, Envy and Greed centre stage, and more often than not a good helping of Gluttony. Look at that marvellous wheeze with Bristol back in the day! What a middle finger up to the King that one was.

But just because he’d invented Customs didn’t mean he had to put up with all the form-filling, so he tightened the tie-down straps on his shipment, and waved away Her Majesty’s wee official on other business.

Across the unloading bay, HM’s Customs Officer kept walking towards him. Huh. Then, from another dimension, wafted a stench that might politely be called brackish. More accurately it would be characterised as three-day-old herring guts.

What had he said? Shit happens, roll with it. He crossed his arms, leaned back on the truck.

“Dagon.”

“Crawly, the traitor.” His name burbled in the other demon’s mouth. Up from the perpetual damp and mildew of Hell, Dagon’s corporation looked tacky in patches, plasmic ooze drying to a sticky film. 

Crowley waited. He wasn’t going to make the first move. Dagon peered under the cover of the truck, prodded around, and drew back to examine a gluey finger, orange and flaky.

“Rusty already,” she said, a mouthful of sharp teeth. “Shame.”

“Shame,” he agreed. Not quite the moment for an explanation of the properties of pre-weathered metals. 

“You miss us.” Her tone was flat, an observation. She loosened a strap to reach in under the cover and pull out a plank. As she turned it in her hands, the wood warped, swelled up, and split.

“Hardly.”

“That so? You’ve been thinking about us very loudly.”

On a human, the clench in his jaw would have probably cracked a tooth. But there was no point with denial, or argument. Maybe it was best to come straight to the point.

“What do you—’

“Cos we don’t think about _you_.” She shoved the plank back inside and grinned, teeth again. A snort, full of phlegm. “Except—when we do—it’s about how embarrassing it must be, to be you. Deprived of all our Master’s infernal duties. Eking out this miserable pantomime with Her pathetic creations.”

She shook her head, dropping the cover and brushing her hands off. Glistening liquid fell from her palms to the ground. “Satan Below, look at you, you’re hauling the filth of the earth like a lowly mule. You’re a stain on demonkind.”

Crowley had long ago reached an equilibrium of sorts with the way he’d failed to fit in Down Below. Story of his life, really. Fallen angel, mediocre demon. You migrated for new opportunities and then you never heard the end of it from your relatives. Oh-ho, they said, look who’s back with his fancy ideas, thinking he’s better than us, not wanting to keep the old ways.

“There are ten million of us,” Dagon was saying. “But you never remember that, do you? Plenty happening without your ugly mug.”

“Great,” Crowley snapped, “then you can just fuck right off again and leave me to my embarrassing existence.”

“Oh, no. You’d like that. No, no. Just because we have no use for you anymore doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy the laughs. Your disappointments with that angel,” and there she scraped her teeth down her slimy tongue, spitting out on a greenish gob onto the concrete as if to take the taste of the word away, “they must feel almost like eternal torment by now.”

She clutched her hand to her chest in mockery. 

Since the beginning, he’d never really shared Aziraphale’s convictions that they were getting away with their arrangements, upper _or_ lower case. Their colleagues had a shared disdain for humanity. That alone kept the agents of Hell and Heaven from taking too much of an interest in them, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out there was something bipartisan going on. It was always a matter of when they’d act, not if they knew.

He’d had his excuses lined up for Hell’s eventual collar-nabbing, and then he’d had his defenses lined up when Aziraphale finally gave him the holy water. And in a secret corner of his mind, he’d nurtured a hope for the Almighty’s ineffability on the subject.

Still. It was a bit humiliating to consider they were low-budget entertainment for the denizens of Hell.

“I’m going now,” he said, and yanked on the door handle.

“Hmm?” She looked up from typing into her handheld computer. “Whatever. There’s a fine for the wrong commodity code. Nine-eight, not one-five.” She printed out a docket and flicked it up at him before he could shut the door on her.

“Better pay it,” she said, walking off. “No appeals.”

He prodded the piece of paper where it landed on the seat. Fucking diabolical. Lord of the Files. Of course: bureaucracy as a weapon. He’d always had a healthy respect for those talents. Some of his best long-form work had been built on her principles. 

Tapping the wheel as he waited in the exit queue, he held the docket up to the light. It could be anything. It could ignite and discorporate him. It could be sapping his strength with every moment he held it— 

“Nah,” he said, and swerved into the red queue. Goods to Declare. Maybe in the past he might have spent ages devising schemes to get to the bottom of it and to outsmart Hell. But he was feeling something shift in himself alongside the angel’s own journey of rediscovery. The worst thing imaginable was imagining the worst, and Dagon knew it. 

He’d told Aziraphale he loved him, and he’d felt no fear. 

Anything else seemed trivial.

“Two hundred and twenty-seven pounds,” said the clerk, monotone, gesturing to the card machine. Crowley punched in some numbers for the novelty of it; the screen blinked ACCEPTED, LOSER. 

He rolled his eyes at the anti-climax and drove on.  
  


* * *

  
The Japanese knotweed had done the trick over the winter. Prospective buyers put in an offer, commissioned their survey, but then: no thanks, offer retracted, back on the market. The intersection of country home buyers who were attracted by the fifteenth-century cottage and garden yet also willing to spend four years eradicating an illegal invasive weed was practically zero.

(“Mr Crowley? The owners wanted to come back to you.”

“Yeah, thought they might.”)

He pulled into the driveway and surveyed the garden. When he’d seen it in autumn, the profiles were spiky, russet and gold with seedheads and the last of the fruit. Now, in spring, it was gloriously fuzzy, a riot of blossoms and new growth softening edges everywhere. Lime and yellow, blue and purple.

Easy enough to flick the property back on the market and be done with it. But as he swapped out the cottage’s beams for some no-nonsense pine (tricky work, even with a supernatural grasp on gravity and matter) he found he was considering otherwise. That garden…it had a different aspect and soil from his own land. Double the possibilities. Such a waste to let that well-lived orchard fall into mere mortal hands. And this cottage, twee chintz-fest that it was, did offer some extra space for grubby activities. Aziraphale could cook up his bookbinding glue. The kitchen would do for potting, for overwintering anything half-hardy until he’d had time to finish a greenhouse.

He glanced up at the thatch roof, shuddered. Fine. It would do for a shed.

Beams loaded on the truck, hands in his pockets, he set off for another wander. His mind was half on the garden, and half still on his demonic encounter. Technically, he ought to let Aziraphale know—(“Do promise me, Crowley.”)—but it just didn’t feel like the kind of serious encounter he’d need to bother the angel with.

Especially not right at this moment, given what Aziraphale had promised to do.

And really, was delayed punishment actually on the cards? He’d spent millenia trying to convince Hell how fabulous a long-game approach could be, but it just wasn’t their style. They wanted immediate returns of discord and despair, always had. Even Heaven only practiced delayed gratification with the humans. 

If there was danger, there would always be danger and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He would always be a demon. And if Hell had no use for him, it wasn’t like he’d ever relied on the Old Firm for his sense of purpose. 

(“You can’t just leave Heaven,” Sporty Spice angel had said to Aziraphale, “you _are_ Heaven.”)

Citizen of the world it would be, then.

On a sober second look, the orchard was as suspected. Too good to hand over to amateurs. There were damson trees! If nothing else, he wanted to hear Aziraphale’s contented noises as he stuffed his face full of plum crumble. 

Buggered if he was driving all this way each time he needed to pot on some seedlings, though. He snapped his fingers, and the sound was followed by distant echoes. Bendy branches broke off to pile birch wicker at his feet; as he gestured to them to entangle, they wove a sturdy arch above his head.

One at the other end, and they’d be sorted.

On his way back to the truck, he stopped by the climbing roses. The previous owners had neglected to prune hard before they left, so he had to deliver some very strict ideas about where new growth was allowed and where it would lead to Bad Things Happening. But the one he wanted today was in the amphora near the back door, a spring frizzle of new leaf on properly cut-back stems.

As he hoisted the terracotta pot off the truck, it struck him that he’d never put a rose in the ground for himself. Eons of watching the humans figure out the mechanics of botanical life, half of it spent getting his own hands dirty—literally—in the ground alongside them. But always on someone else’s land. In someone else’s greenhouse or roof terrace. In a pot on his sunny landing, captive, constrained by glazed ceramic to grow this far, but no further.

Got to be able to pick up and move on, he heard himself say down through the centuries. Things are always happening, out there.

And they would be.

Back in February, he’d mooched around one of his favourite little galleries in the Low Countries. He kept a few pieces there: some of them had become ridiculously popular, whatever, proof of his exceptional taste. He’d had no real intention to remove any of them. But then he’d stood in front of the still life he’d acquired centuries before, admiring the dramatic mood van Aelst had achieved—the decay in the leaves, the blowsy roses and the striped romance of the pinks, the intricacy of dragonfly wings and clockwork innards endlessly detailed—and he’d known it had to come home with him.

(Home.)

On the land, he didn’t need the light to keep working, but there was enough of it gilding the hillside to make marking out the dimensions of the building feel celebratory. He would start to dig tomorrow; far back into the slope for a top floor with ceiling shafts, deep enough for the bottom floor’s cantilever to be solidly anchored in the earth. Sometime in the near future, he could drive that oak beam directly into the centre of the foundations. 

The outlines of the house were clear in his mind now. 

And whether it would be through luck, or ineffability, or patience repaid, or simply an angel acknowledging his own heart, he hoped he could share it with Aziraphale soon.

### Authors' notes

 **Crowley’s dress  
** She vowed not to wear any further women’s [fashion](https://www.mimimatthews.com/2015/11/30/the-1830s-in-fashionable-gowns-a-visual-guide-to-the-decade/) in the nineteenth century until necklines improved.

 **Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition  
** As you can imagine, Crowley was _super_ excited about [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace#The_Great_Exhibition_of_1851), both for himself, and for his mate Paxton who’d finally made the big time with his clever glasshouses. Also, he was pretty giddy about showing Aziraphale the Jennings innovations (the first flushing public loos)—the angel always did love advancements in decent plumbing.

 **Customs at the Port of Southampton  
** There is story research, and then there is getting too deep in the weeds of RORO ferries and the technicalities of tariffs. Pretty much everything about the port is made up: while you can indeed embark on many ferry cruises from Southampton, we have no idea if HMRC staff wander around handing out fines, and you were spared the details of shiny heavy goods vehicles. The one thing that is accurate is the [commodity code](https://www.trade-tariff.service.gov.uk/headings/4407): Crowley tried to get away with 44072915 (Wood and articles of wood: wood sawn or chipped lengthwise: Of tropical wood: Other) when it fact he was importing (technically extinct) 44072996 Of tropical wood: Other: Other.

(Yeah, except we know you actually do want to see the [ butch truck](https://www.mercedes-benz-trucks.com/en_GB/models/atego-construction.html).)

 ** _Slavery Compensation Act,_ 1837** _  
_ “This [1837 Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Compensation_Act_1837) paid [substantial money](https://www.taxjustice.net/2020/06/09/slavery-compensation-uk-questions/) to the former slave owners, but nothing to the newly liberated people.”

 **Still life for the kitchen  
** Crowley’s gallery trip was to the [Mauritshuis](https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/), objectively one of the most amazing small galleries in Europe. It’s full of Dutch Old Masters, including the _Girl with a Pearl Earring_ and _The Goldfinch_ , and is where your authors began a ridiculous obsession with Willem van de Velde’s seascapes (that’s for another time). The [painting](https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/explore/the-collection/artworks/flower-still-life-with-a-timepiece-2/#) Crowley stashed here was _Flower Still Life with a Timepiece_ by Willem van Aelst. As a [vanitas piece](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_Still_life_with_a_watch), it shows the transience and ephemerality of life, but Crowley thought it would look well in the new kitchen.

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 16

[YO! MY SAINT](https://open.spotify.com/track/2We0UNxKWgx4by5BVxy6P5?si=uymvXtsAT16A4b6vIbkaMw)  
Karen O, Michael Kiwanuka

[Refugee](https://open.spotify.com/track/7BIH3fdrShidS21RkGOAiQ?si=SaP0INbASR2krQY2sxpVeQ)  
Melissa Etheridge

#### Perfume

[Fathom V](https://beaufortlondon.com/product/fathom-v-eau-de-parfum/), by Beaufort  
Salty docks, building earthworks, gilded with lily


	17. Of the East, April

Lost. So much time, lost. 

Aziraphale stood at the tumble-down cliff-edge, looking across the eastern coast. There were ships in the water below—so many of them, heaving with laden nets and barrels of cargo and shouting sailors. The mouth of the port boiled over. Thirteenth-century rush hour. On the beach, young children played amidst the lobster traps. Alongside their mothers, elder siblings shucked molluscs from their shells.

Tears: blurring, abrading. He brushed them away, and the present shifted back into focus. The golden beach stretched out empty and inviting towards the curve of the bay. Light shimmered from strand to sea. Against them, the cliff sheared and slouched, sand and shingle smudged black with afternoon shadows.

The breeze turned chilly. He lifted his collar, set his back to the view. Before him on the heath, the priory ruins were a motley collection of beach rubble and limestone. Some of the ruined arches were bricked at their bases in a hopeful fight against the inevitable decline. 

He walked through a doorway that was empty now, opening into the wind and air. He crossed the threshold into the Franciscan chapel, hearing the plainchant wash over him.

A muffled peal of bells, and the shuffling of rough cloth across the flagstones. Then roof tiles fell away, the chapel abandoned. Rough hammering clanged above him, mending a house of God for more civic matters, and the wet throng of a town meeting assaulted his nostrils in a press of pickle barrels and sheep dung.

Aziraphale rested in the scruff-grass by the base of one of the ruined walls, one hand out on the stone to anchor himself to the fact that it was rough and wrecked, not smooth and cared-for, that it was of _this_ moment and of none previous. He thought about the delicacy of Crowley’s hands, and the way they’d spun gossamer threads of true magic. 

( _I remember the days of long ago;_ _  
_ _I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done._ )

How he’d taken a bloom and frozen it out of time itself, simply for an angel’s wonder. How no doubt he’d hoped too, for an acknowledgement, some praise, perhaps a kiss.

( _I spread out my hands to you; I thirst for you like a parched land._ )

Had Aziraphale given him what he wanted, before?

He hoped so; oh, how he hoped he had.

But he couldn’t tell. Not yet. If he had the demon’s gift for time he would wrap a sphere of it around himself, let this new knowledge sift its slow way back into his being in the way it deserved. 

Two hundred years and more to reconcile. So much to consider. 

Crowley had—

 _She_ had—

How laughable that he’d rushed here to this place straight from Derbyshire, determined to finish the memory business once and for all. He’d been so intent on his destination he barely registered the journey. A final memory, somewhere in the Suffolk marshes, at Dunwich. Surely it held some vital clue.

But that was just proof he’d spent too much time absorbed in human narratives. (Nose in a book, said a sardonic voice in his head.) Of course there was no convenient key to understanding himself, no theme notes for critical analysis. An hour ago, he’d nursed a pint of local ale at an old coaching inn, wandering the quiet pub in search of the Tudor wainscotting and his final, filed memory. In a corner, he’d found his stern self-reprimand scratched into the oak with angelic priggishness:

> _Bibere humanum est. Ne biber!_

Clearly the result of some epic hangover and a censure from Upstairs, and a lesson he’d never learned anyhow. He’d laughed, hollow, and it had come out more of a groan. What an anti-climax.

At the bar, the publican had refilled his glass without any need for Aziraphale to ask.

“That kind of day, mate?”

Aziraphale had grimaced, lifting his pint.

Last time he’d been in these parts he’d heard stories about the city lost beneath the waves, the sound of the church bells tolling from the seabed. The time before he’d been in a group of merchant travellers, visiting the bustling port.

Crowley had spent time here in Dunwich, he suddenly recalled. The demon had been tickled that a town whose significance had faded hundreds of years before had still returned two members to Parliament. Crowley had loved rotten boroughs.

He rubbed his temples, shutting his eyes, shutting his Eyes. No need for celestial perception in this place, where the truths of the past were so near to the surface. The cliffs eroding, revealing their layers and their skeletons, stripping back under the steady beat of water. Like Crowley. Omnipresent in his existence, there from the Beginning. Relentless, chaotic, but steady, so steady. Always there, beating against his edges, smoothing them down, enfolding them.

There was movement from the corner of his vision. He crouched. 

“Hello,” he murmured, words cracking in a voice rough from emotion and disuse. A shy adder. _Vipera berus_ , two foot long and absolutely gorgeous. Brassy eyes and a black zig-zag of scales on its grey-brown back. A curious tongue that darted out to taste the salt off his skin when he offered it.

Yearning so sharp it stung. The snake slid across the toe of his boot—a barely-there weight, and almost unbearable intimacy—and off into the tall grasses. 

So much touch, left to aching wishes.

Yet, there _was_ love. For all that had been lost and left unnurtured, love had persisted. Spread and flourished, with thorny vines and sweet-scented blossoms both. Grown to strength through Crowley’s careful, patient cultivation and in spite of Aziraphale’s own benign neglect.

He had promised he would remember, now.

He had; he did; he would.

Love had always been there, and not lost but tucked away. The missing pieces of his ageless life were still unfolding within him, showing him how. He’d once thought them bare parts of his fabric, hastily patched; they turned out to be gathers and pleats, knotted tapestry and lace, fine things that he adored. 

In his coat pocket, he curled his fingers around the smooth shaft of the arrow. It was in pieces; he’d snapped it under the strain as the past washed back over him. The fletching was straight and true, intact after decades at the bottom of the lake, memories waiting quietly to be wanted again. And by the time he’d journeyed to Chatsworth from Devon, a meandering line of meditation across the country, he’d wanted very much.

That he and Crowley had been—

Well, he was not surprised. How could he be? Sitting on the pew in Culbone chapel, pocket telephone in his hand, still warm with the timbre of Crowley telling him:

“I love you. I always did.”

Once the possibility was admitted, hundreds of moments marshalled themselves in a new narrative. (Oh, how could he ever have thought Crowley impatient?) But this story, unfolded and laid out carefully, the seams examined, the colours changing in the light—it wasn’t new knowledge. It was permission to acknowledge himself. To see his true self, the freedom to embody his nature. 

He turned the fragment of the arrow over in his hand, the black feather and the red thread stark against his palm. 

(At Chatsworth, he had stared at the pieces, unfocused as his vision blurred. The blustery April day whipped up the Cascade, a chill spray on his face when he tipped his head back, overwhelmed. _Be still_ , the poet had written, thousands of years ago in the King’s court. The words came to him as he remembered Her voice. _Be still and know that I am God_. Rejoice and tremble. 

Guard, and love. Wasn’t that near enough?

The park and the grand house fell away in a blur. Everything precious, everything awful, from that time, he held tight in his grasp. Breathed, in and out, and walked. There was solace in those ordinary actions, being bound to earth and air. Black and red in his left hand, in his right the arrowhead, sharp-edged as off the forges of Heaven. 

Not a choice, some inner voice counselled.

Never a choice.

Gravel crunched under his feet, and he blinked, looked around to see he’d walked clear of the grounds and out to the visitor car park. Rows of cars and coaches, amongst them the nondescript hire car he’d driven here. He needed to sit, to think—

The Bentley was waiting for him.

The dearest thing.

“You’ve. You’ve mud on your—” He laid his hand on the bonnet, on the splashes of muck thrown up by the spring showers and country lanes. The car was warm, rumbling quietly, affection and concern. “You needn’t have come, I’m—”

Aziraphale choked, gratitude a sob caught in his throat. 

“Oh, my love. Thank you.” 

The driver’s door clicked open, and as he reached for the handle he stumbled on the loose gravel, unbalanced once more. On the passenger seat sat their picnic blanket, and when Aziraphale gathered it up to himself, he buried his face in the soft warmth, and wept.)

On the clifftop, he picked himself up and shook out the blanket, surveying the vista with a single gaze on the present. The layers of the past suggested alternate futures not explored; from now, they would be his to consider. And the immediate, most simple future: the gorse on the heath wouldn’t flower for a month or two yet, but its faint citrus painted the air nonetheless. And later in the summer the green of the heather would shade pink-purple. 

A last glance back across the cliff before he headed down the path. A memory, a recent one, of another place in ruins. His journey to the Holy Island. The changeable grey of the North Sea, the tide creeping across the causeway. 

The North Sea here, farther south, felt different. Or perhaps he, the eternal being, was simply changeable now, too.  
  


* * *

  
He woke the next morning with the first light, blinking through a rush of fading images, their tangled copper threads just beyond his grasp. Sleep was never something he’d sought deliberately, but since he’d embarked on this journey all those months ago he found himself just as often nodding off rather than finishing his book.

He yawned. Standing at the door of the little cabin beyond the pub garden, clutching a cup of tea, his head still felt heavy with contradictions. What had he expected? Re-cataloguing the bookshop should have been an object lesson: the pursuit of order meant a temporary multiplication of disorder. He’d never been the tidiest of beings, but everything had a place. Now he _knew_ the everythings, but they needed their place.

The rising sun slanted in low through the trees between his accommodation and the sea. To the north, a chittering came from sparrows in the allotment hedges as an early-morning jogger huffed along the nearby path. Aziraphale listened to the rhythmic pound of footsteps as they came nearer, raised his tea in salute as the runner nodded, her pace picking up down the boarded path to the beach.

When he’d driven into the village last night, the pub’s landlord had directed him to a car park overlooking the river, the dunes rising behind. He’d sat with the Bentley for a time, watching a rower pull through the quiet water; turn, and return. Inevitable that his thoughts turned to Crowley, exertion stretching muscle taut over his shoulders as he rowed, Aziraphale’s thoughts of thousands of years before captivated and hungry. He’d named it Lust, and it had been, but nothing shabby nor sinful. _Fascination_ , he’d name it now; a lesson in fascination

Crowley had always moved like he’d known his own body, like all his Selves were embodied there on Earth and in harmony. His swaying gait and slither-come-hither hips; deceptive, graceful hands; the fall of her gorgeous hair; schooled expressions and helpless grins. Aziraphale had been stiff, at first, uncertain in his corporation. Travel and experience had helped, as had discovering the delight of indulging his appetites. Healing work and medical training had given him a mechanical appreciation. But it had been Crowley who had helped him find joy in movement, in movement with another being. Crowley who’d been pulling him up and away from the static thrall he’d been so susceptible too since the written word began. (“The book’ll keep, angel, come out and see what the humans are up to now.”) 

Crowley, who had wanted his _body_ , who’d made him think of his Heaven-issued corporation _as_ a body. Something that Aziraphale could lay proper claim to as his own. Something to be wanted and well-used.

Such memories had him feeling more settled in his own skin than he'd been in a long time. Now he could remember the pleasure of well-using their bodies together. 

He flushed, sipping his coffee.

This morning as he listened to the runner’s footsteps fade, his own desire for movement, for physical endurance and another satisfying way to use his body, took hold again. Re-cataloguing his Self needed time, and it needed simplicity, and the wide, flat landscape of East Anglia stretched out towards a northern coast in invitation. Another journey, miles to burn.

Speaking of movement. This time out of the corner of his eye, in the grass. Not another adder, but rather, a pair of slow worms, locked together in an hours-long embrace. 

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” he huffed in exasperation.

“I’m walking to Framlingham today,” he said, folding back the Explorer map and tracing a diagonal inland. “But a quick look about Southwold first. I’ve heard the beach huts are quite something.”

The couple waiting with him on the ferry pier nodded. “Loads of them,” one of the women said, “but my god they’re expensive! Some of them go for thirty grand!” 

Her girlfriend leaned over and tapped at the map. “You should take the walk through the marshes. There’s hides for birdwatching. We did it yesterday—”

“The lighthouse is worth a visit—”

“There’s an amazing bakery, and the brewery has a nice outdoors—”

“—are you really only staying the morning?”

They plied him with suggestions until the rowboat arrived, pulled by a stringy man who greeted them with banter about the dangerous rolling waves and the long journey ahead. The tiniest of ripples troubled the river in the few minutes it took to row across, and the ferryman joined in the advocacy for exploring locally.

On the other side, Aziraphale waved off the women as they headed to the beach, laden down with a windbreak and chairs. The ferryman handed off oars to a woman who could only be his sister, and she added more to Aziraphale’s list of attractions. 

“Oh, very kind, but I really am just here for a day or so.”

“Last ferry’s at five,” she said cheerily.

Exploring the Southwold seafront satisfied his need to walk for the best part of the morning. The fine dry sand required a determined step, and produced the same pleasant burn in his haunches that a few hours scaling the moors did back in the autumn. The beach huts were much more diverting than endless heather. Rows of them, toffee-apple and floss colours and jaunty names. _Jabba the Hut_ , he read, and _Cross Keys_ , and _Hunky Dory._

(Something about them had his pocket telephone ready in hand. He’d send a photo; Crowley would say that he’d bought one thirty years before, before they were _popular_ ; and there it would be, third along and painted in his tartan colours, named _Tickety-Boo_ or somesuch. He did take the photo, but feeling abruptly ridiculous, he didn’t send the text.)

The sky was a serene blue, with lazy white clouds and the shrill of gulls. Aziraphale strolled to the end of the pier and back, running thoughtful fingers over every fond and funny memorial plaque, sending blessings to those left behind. Later, as the sun grew hotter, he rolled up his trousers and dangled his shoes in hand as he walked through the surf. This was a softer beach than at Dunwich, all bunting and elderflower sorbet, the pulse of history less frantic. 

The wet sand sucked at each bare footstep, cradling him in place. Easy to stand and watch the shape of ships at the horizon, thinking blissfully of nothing at all.

Clouds banked in over the North Sea.

Lunch was a sourdough pizza, the crust fizzing with flavour and the toppings of thyme, honey, and cheese unctuously satisfying. He wedged his notebook between the edge of his plate and his coffee mug to hold open the page, and fished out his pencil at the bottom of his satchel. Writing about nothing really, but enjoying the way that, just as the dreams had helped, so too did putting disjointed thoughts to ordered paper. 

Around him, a well-caffeinated buzz as crowds of locals and tourists wandered in and out for treats. He spent a pleasant hour writing, and thumbing through his notebook, at the things he’d noticed and written about during his travels. If there were themes they stayed esoteric, but he found he didn’t mind—his post-lunch satiation didn’t match well with a hungry search for meaning. It would come together, in its own time. 

(Besides, the bakery was named The Two Magpies. Given the strength of his wistfulness for Crowley right now, and the awkward hilarity of those reptilian reminders, Aziraphale could only be thankful that dramatic ironies tended to come in threes.) 

He ordered a pot of tea and checked his messages. There was a short text from Ravi saying granddaughter number two had arrived, and a photograph from Anathema. It was a selfie with Crowley—not recent, judging from the winter weight of their clothes—but they were dressed to the nines in a bar, both of them looking sophisticated and beautiful and desperately pleased with themselves.

_Thought you might like a pick-me-up. He’s fretting about you._

_Don’t tell_ him _I said that, I don’t want to die._

 _You’re both very sweet,_ he typed back. _Your secret is safe with me._

 _It better be._ _Or I’ll tell him you called him sweet._

He poured a cup through the strainer, and in his attention to the tea leaves, found that he’d brushed against his phone’s screen, opening another conversation. The most recent text, two days ago. He scrolled backwards through six weeks of sparse messages, back to the south-west.

A photograph: His hand on the hood of the Bentley. 

_Thank you both._

_I will._

_just say if you need anything_

_if you need anything_

_ok_

_Not really. Not yet._

_angel OK?_

_ok?_

_Crowley oh_

_Going today._

_yep i am_

_You’re incorrigible._

_This is hard enough without some semblance of order._

_yep i will_

_Tease me as you like._

_course. starting at A1 like you do_

_I’m not avoiding it._

_I’m going to Chatsworth. But there are still some places I need to go on the way._

He slept, and dreamed. 

Candlelight blazing, every corner of the room filled with it until his skin prickled with heat and sweat. The black-fabric shapes of so many men, lining the theatre like hunching crows, their avid stares burning like the candles.

He could feel the steel in his spine, the pride (Pride) propelling his voice. He spoke, and it sounded as Truth, that he would save this man. The scalpel was in hand, the perfect-balance of the blade a precise line across his palm. His fingers curled around it—a conductor’s baton, a cello bow, a shining sword, an iron nail. 

He looked down, and saw himself on the table. Naked, pale skin, rolls of indulgent flesh and the hard slabs of muscle beneath. He set the edge of the scalpel to his sternum, and began his cut. Golden ichor welled; light. The slice did its work: he reached, and pulled out a book. Cut pages, foxed corners. Another deft slice, along his own flank, and more books cleaved from him, falling to the floor, as he cut and cut. Shakespeare’s _Antony and Cleopatra._ Newton’s _Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John._ Harvey’s _De Motu Cordis._

Footsteps beside him.

Crowley, bending with him to look. Solemn, beautiful, as he touched the pages of a small volume bound in blue cloth that had been lodged near the larynx.

“I would crack open your ribs,” Aziraphale breathed, moving away from himself to crowd the demon. “And consume your heart.”

Crowley smiled and pulled Aziraphale’s hands, the dripping blade, towards his own breast.

“Back again,” the sister noted.

Aziraphale patted the map open on his lap. “Moving on tomorrow,” he said.

He dreamed.

A pommel-guard of cloisonné garnets.

“For service,” said the long-dead queen. “Your reward.”

Aziraphale bowed his head, accepting the gift. Rubbed his calloused thumb across the goldwork. An image, as finely fractured as the slivers of gemstone:

Crowley’s hair matted and dark with sweat; his skin, sun-burnished and wind-rough; the blood of a defeated army on his face; his eyes, his eyes, his eyes.

“Tomorrow?” the brother asked, grinning.

“Definitely tomorrow.”

“Thought you said you wanted to walk up to Cromer.” She kept up an impressively smooth rowing pace towards the dock even as she laughed at the sight of him waiting once again. “For the ‘proper’ crab sandwiches, you said, and the fossilised forest.”

“Leaving tomorrow,” he called back.

Though, of course, his Walberswick pub did a fine offering of crab on the half-shell, the meat delivered fresh from the North Norfolk coast every morning. A prehistoric forest wouldn’t need to be hurried. He still hadn’t managed to go birdwatching yet.

A low morning, with the clouds moving quickly across the wide sky and his fingers clumsy with his boot-laces. His bag, otherwise packed and ready, was missing his canteen and he was damned if he would use a miracle to find the dratted thing. He’d made the mistake of sleeping the night before; had dreamed again. A fever-dream of flesh and want and fear, and he’d woken parched and impatient and afraid.

He found that he was very, very angry at Crowley.

Silent, for all this time. Lying, always _lying_ , through half-truth and omission.

“Coward,” he accused, throat tight around the word. Though he would not say it to Crowley he needed desperately to acknowledge it aloud, that he was not alone in that bitter offense. 

Aziraphale arranged to stay at the cabin another few days. He settled into an armchair with his book, and very deliberately did not think of anything at all.

Back in The Two Magpies after a brisk morning walk through the dew. The tourists were laggardly abed, and while he was up at the counter choosing his pastry, the owners were chatting about the course that was running the following Saturday. Registrations weren’t as hoped, and they were thinking about cancelling.

“Don’t,” he urged, on the impulse, and guaranteed the rest of the places there and then with his brandished credit card and an extra cinnamon roll for the trail.

A theme, perhaps, emergent, on his second time that week around an eight-mile looping walk from Walberswick. There was something special, he reflected, in a small, familiar journey made with a known destination, a comfortable place at its end. It made the walk itself less of a means, and more of a chance to bring mind and body full-circle. 

He’d rarely had the luxury in his early travels. And on this modern pilgrimage he’d been so eager to see, to experience; places to arrive and missions to complete despite the many delightful detours.

It felt right, now, to linger, to notice, to absorb.

As he stopped for his packed lunch just off the coast path he found that the beaten path, the muscle memory of his feet, had already done their work. His anger was still there, but bitterness was tinged bittersweet. 

To be angry at Crowley for letting him go was to be angry with himself, for leaving. To be angry at Crowley for always running away was to be angry at himself, for never making it safe for Crowley to stay. 

This time he wouldn’t put that anger aside, or hide it. He’d let it simmer. And if it came to the boil in the coming days then so be it. The faster it would turn to steam and dissipate.

Aziraphale picked up his rubbish and glanced up at the sun, marking how long it would be before it shifted across the proverbial yard-arm. He’d complete his loop and see where he was when he reached the end. And if he needed to walk it again, or again, he’d do that. On a journey you could leave any baggage behind but yourself, after all. Might as well lighten the load.

“I’m quite churched out,” he explained to the landlady in the pub a fortnight after his arrival. “Enjoying the smaller glories of Creation on this trip.” 

She pushed the pint of ale over the bar to accompany his steak sandwich and nodded understandingly. “Fair enough. It’s something special though, even if you’re worshipping my chips these days.”

He doused the pile with vinegar unrepentantly. “They _are_ divine.”

“Still with us, then, Ezra?”

“I rather think I am,” he sighed, but with a smile. He reached over the side of the ferry to trail a fingertip into the river Blyth. That morning, he’d sent the Bentley home.

As he’d often found before, a plan was only ever a hopeful thing.  
  


* * *

  
The Cathedral of the Marshes rose stately on a low mound above the village of Blythburgh. It was a reference in the distance on his walks, sun-struck flint in the early morning and stunningly floodlit across the plains in the evening. He’d visited before in the past, back when newly-built, and again after the reformers ripped everything they thought idolatrous from it. Today when he ran his hands over the font at the porch it rippled with serene calm. 

It was an English church like so many others: all of the usual Anglican trappings and concessions, the echoes of the Roman ways, the sneaky signs of regional paganism. But more than some others, it shone. Blazed with the unmistakable glow of a sacred place where humans had believed together for generations on end. The air was cool and dry, dust-moted enough that the play of light on the whitewashed walls and the caramel bricks sparkled like an old-fashioned Champagne. Warmth swirled around his ankles, tickling the hairs on his legs, still bared from the walk through the marshes. 

“FAIRIES MUMMY LOOK!” came the yell of a small child. Pointing and wriggling enthusiastically in her father’s grip, she demanded her mother come see the fairies on the roof. Aziraphale watched with amusement as mother and father exchanged a muttered conversation about ‘cultural education’ and ‘indoctrination in nonsense’, before turning his own gaze upwards.

Carved wooden angels straddled the tie-beams along the central wooden ridge. Their colours were surprisingly well-preserved; where paint flaked it gave some of the angels a comical expression of surprise. Wings were spread wide, hands clutched heraldic symbols. The carving skill was exceptional.

The family’s hushed theological discussion had reached a compromise. 

“Like the angel on the Christmas tree, darling,” Dad said. “They, umm, they look after us and make sure we’re good. Right, mummy?” 

Mummy was clearly not so sure. “Yes, but it’s better if we learn to be good ourselves.”

Unimpressed, the child twisted around to an older woman walking back down the aisle. “Nana, fairy angels!”

“Yes, hen, aren’t they lovely, they’re our guardians.” 

Aziraphale left them to their business and ducked up a small staircase. Ascending, he thought amusedly, setting his tread to the curve in the stone. The carved angels had individual faces, no doubt some nod to the local gents who’d donated their gold in return for their livery to loom over the congregation. Watching and judging, always from afar. The medieval woodcarvers had the right of it. His siblings in Heaven were distant onlookers, despite what the grandmother downstairs wished for her family. An occasional deliverance or miracle, a smiting or an unplanned pregnancy, but never truly engaged with the roiling, ingenious, hopeful mass of humanity. 

At the top of the stairs he ducked under a lintel into a priest’s room. Leadlight windows and rush matting on the floor, benches square to the white walls. He sat with his hands folded, eyes unfocused, gaze inward. He sat with his small, mean thoughts, giving face to each of those angels, naming and numerating his feelings on Michael, on Sandalphon. On _Gabriel_ , especially. The archangel’s barely-contained disgust at human behaviour even as he busied himself with noting every misstep. Revulsion turned deep when he thought of Gabriel the Recorder, and his supercilious disdain at Aziraphale for going amongst the people to know them, rather than to judge them. 

He sat, while he let rage burn white-hot inside, while he remembered that Hell’s demons had more mercy than the angels of Heaven. No trial, no care, no grace. Just a column of hellfire.

He sat, while visitors climbed up and peered in, smiled at the nun’s prayer on the wall, took pictures, or just sat quietly with him. 

Few flames were eternal. They needed fuel, and the catharsis of combustion was all Aziraphale found he needed. 

After a time he heard the volume downstairs rise. A whole group entered at once, talking and greeting, noise muted as they moved up towards the altar. Then: voices, singing. A choir practice. The acoustics, even muffled through stone and funnelled up the staircase, were glorious.

Music—as always—was a welcome distraction. An unfamiliar song in complex harmonies filled the building; he focused in on the soprano, on the tenor, following each melody through the piece, and each chord helped to drown out his discontent with the denizens of Heaven. 

Forgiveness was a gift of Grace, his to give. He could do that, now he’d given shape to anger he’d been too frightened to admit. He pushed himself up from the bench, buttocks numb from too long on the hard seat, and stretched. 

“I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre,” he nodded, as a line of psalm came unbidden, and he went down the stairs to hear the singing.

Dreaming:

A desert vista. Rough red and bright blue, the light so harsh that his eyes felt new and raw and _young_. The sand, grit and pointillisme; the rock, worn down by the wind and the extremes of nature’s brush.

He knew this place: each stroke to stand for a year.

He spun in place, his sandals dislodging the crust of the dune, his feet shifting on the inconstant footing. Overbalanced, he teetered, the sand burning against his skin. When he caught himself and turned again, his back was hot and flat against the baking stones of the Garden, each one the height of a man. The stones stretched up and across, endless as the empty desert. This was the Eastern Wall. He could feel its resonance in every molecule of his being, through the firmament of his truest Self. He squinted into the distance, searching for something to resolve on the horizon. Nothing, except for the seamless, unbroken circuit of stone.

It was so bright, and the world so empty; he could feel that, too.

_How do you cope with the dreams?_

_you’re sleeping?_

_I thought it would help. Emotional memory consolidation and all that._

_But, well, dreams. They’re...vivid._

A long pause.

_too vivid?_

He paused, himself. But. Honesty.

_A little._

_vivid’s good vivid’s alive_

He wanted to complain, _Vivid’s uncomfortable._ But: honesty. 

_They’re lonely._

He stared at the blinking dots until they resolved. 

_yeah can be_

Aziraphale sighed and rolled over. The gloom would make for a terrible shot, but he took one nonetheless. Rumpled, pale curls; a bleary eye. And he let the little paper plane carry it off, reaching out in the dark, because he was damned if he was going to be a coward any more. 

He lay still, listening to the creaks of the cabin and the sound of the pre-dawn drizzle, until the screen lit up with the response.

Mussed hair and a baleful eye: sulphur yellow and beautiful.

Then, just as he was letting himself feel absurdly sentimental, another message. The arch of a foot, a smattering of scales, the flex of toes.

And then others: a hand; a collar-bone; an out-of-focus close-up of the coils of a serpent sigil.

_Very funny_

_still lonely?_

_Not any more._

The rich scent of butter and cinnamon was enough to give an angel vapours.

“Steady on,” laughed the owner, acting as instructor that day to their determined and hungry little group. “I’ve done a batch to get you started otherwise you’d not pay attention.” He pulled a tray of oozing buns from the oven.

“Bless you,” sighed the woman beside him with genuine relief, and Aziraphale gave the sentiment an obliging bit of oomph because he couldn’t have agreed more.

Several lots of pastry rested in greaseproof paper wrap. Easy: simple sweet with a hint of almond. The makings for a _crème d’amande_ sat half-combined beside the punnet of raspberries.

“You’re no amateur,” his instructor accused with a grin.

A quick glance around the room showed that the majority were still measuring flour.

Aziraphale smiled at the understatement. “I’ve dabbled.”

“We’ll see how you do on the puff after lunch.”

He knew a challenge when he heard one.

His fellow apprentices that day were mostly women, many with the lines and curves across their bodies that proclaimed lives well-used to indulging in the things they enjoyed. The group immediately bonded, particularly after they’d spotted that Aziraphale was a dab hand and a generous one when their own pastry was too dry and crumbly, or too warm and floppy, to be of use.

In constant conversation, they broke bread with soup: a crab bisque that was both light and rich, and a crusty roll that was perfectly seeded. The taste was exquisite, the memories it evoked even more so. Dear Willie at her easel, Aziraphale in his kitchen; the art, but most of all, the warmth of real friendship. His time at St Ives had settled now, stitched back and mended. He could feel the embers of his love for that group of friends, not for how they had viewed him or his talents, but for what they had meant to _him_. Now, around him, another group welcomed him into their midst. He took another spoonful, savouring the taste on his tongue and the mellowness of belonging across his ethereal senses. 

The woman next to him—Julia, she’d introduced herself, while making off with his second batch of almondine—gave a conspiratorial nudge. “You look like you’ve had a revelation.” 

“Something like that,” he admitted.

“I get it. Nearly fainted myself when I realised how much butter goes into a croissant.”

“London. I own a bookshop in Soho,” he explained, as they went round the table. Smirks and raised eyebrows—clearly the ‘in Soho’ placed certain expectations on the nature of his business. “Mostly second-hand, rare and antiquarian.”

An equal number of heads perked up as then dropped their attention back to their dough. The usual questions followed: his specialties, the most expensive thing he’d ever sold, weren’t paper books obsolete? 

The woman opposite him—a Blythburgh local, she’d said—applied her rolling pin to her lamination and harrumphed. “Bloke down Aldeburgh wanted to charge us fifty quid a pop to repair the prayer books at the cathedral.”

“ _Did_ he now,” said Aziraphale. “How many books are we talking about?”

“Some of them are in a terrible state,” said Helen. The warden opened a creaking cupboard in the vestry. “We’ve got newer paperbacks, of course, but some of these prayer books go back two hundred years. So many parishioners wrote their names in them! And the odd naughty bit of graffiti...but are you sure? This is awfully generous and I’m sure you heard how much the other chap quoted us.”

Aziraphale reached for a particularly dilapidated book. No spine or back cover, it was held together with a piece of cardboard and string. Soft green calfskin and a little embossed work on the front. He scanned the shelf: predominantly 1840s green and a deep 1920s burgundy, a handful of older oddities, but most would be straightforward repairs with easily sourced materials. If he set himself up as light entertainment in a corner during the week the church could take donations. The sort of Suffolk visitor who liked to tour a historical site like Holy Trinity was exactly the sort of visitor who’d gladly drop a few coins to watch a bookbinder position new endpapers.

The churchwarden agreed. Of course she did: any temporary aroma of glue would be worth the thousands of pounds the eccentric bookseller was going to save the parish.

_Is this everything?_

Anathema’s message came with pictures of the two open boxes and a bubble-paper envelope, equipment matching the list he’d sent her the day before. Probably he should’ve rung her, had an encouraging conversation about her own plans and escapades. But she’d been canny enough to send him that pick-me-up, and he wasn’t ready for her earnest enquiries.

 _Yes, marvellous_ , he sent back, with a request for his favourite bonefolder and a smaller spokeshave.

_Can’t believe I know what these things are now._

_They’re useful skills to take you anywhere in life_ , _surely_. 

That met with her eye-roll emoji.

No dreams, but a shifted sense of purpose that morning. He set off for the ferry, the beach, the bakery: a coffee for the walk and a packed lunch for later. Morning activity chittered through the marshes, and he spotted a bittern, almost invisible in the reedbeds. At the church, the nave gleamed, a sandy shoreline indoors. He stood still for a moment in the cool, serene brightness. 

On a table, his boxes had arrived. He opened one to a waft of home. His shop, his tools, air saturated with two centuries of the familiar. Then Crowley, lemons and ozone wreathed around every awl and bodkin he removed from the boxes. Anathema’s faint silver overlay. In the last envelope, he tipped out a stack of business cards (assistant or demon, he couldn’t tell which to blame); a little blue book amongst the post from his desk; and a small wrapped package. 

“Here’s the first pile!” A beaming Helen placed a tall stack of red books in front of him. “Or is that too many for one day?”

Giving the pile a critical once over, Aziraphale passed her back half of it. 

“We’ll see how we get on.” He _was_ a miracle worker, but just as he had walked the hour across the marshes, he didn’t intend to make short shrift of this task. 

The familiar, methodical work pulled him in and under, as it always did. Pages and stitching to examine, leather and cloth to match, tooling and re-gilding into the bare spot on the covers where hundreds of forefingers had rubbed away the gold. Each Book of Common Prayer fell open on a well-used spot: Easter week, or the baptism of infants, morning prayer. More than once he had to slide a scalpel to prise open the dull bits for ordaining deacons, unused these past hundred years. The table soon lacked for space as books sat drying or awaiting their turn in the press. Visitors stopped to ask questions, and some even paid attention to his answers. He kept a note of the names and scribbles he came across. 

“I thought you might put it on the noticeboard for a bit of public shaming,” he explained, “folk can look for their relatives and own up to the vandalism. Might be stirred to make a donation.”

Helen, who had an eye on new pew cushions now the vexing issue of book repair was sorted, pulled out her pocket telephone to take a picture. “I’ll get my daughter to pop it on the website.”

Afternoon, and the choir returned for practice. Their sound was sublime, clear tones resonating into every corner of the space. Familiar folk arrangements this week, perfect accompaniment to his absorbing mending and measuring, and he found a rhythm to match the choirs’ own between the turning of the pages and pulling of threads. Irresistible after a while not to join in with these old melodies, and his thoughts turned to Crowley at the verse of _Scarborough Fair_ , in the shirt without seams he’d given him that winter. All the while, his fingers trailed their own path over the familiar lines of lessons and epiphanies, epistles and psalms. Another repetitive circuit to wander, this perambulation an exertion of the mind rather than the body.

The scribbles were frequent. _Psalm 63 much finer_ , wrote R.L. in the margin besides 57. In another volume, the epistle to the Corinthians for a funeral, and three suggestions for readings, in different hands. Noting an unknown Baxter, he rummaged through his materials for a pen, ink of his own concoction. Edna’s _Dirge_ he underlined, the sentiment resonating: _And I am not resigned_. 

Aziraphale was not the sort of book collector who valued a pristine page, unmarred by dog-ears or enthusiastic underlining of favourite passages. Quite the opposite. To find an annotated margin was to enter into conversation with another reader—blessedly, without the threat of diminishing his own stock. Further through his pile, the sacraments of marriage were annotated by _Louisa, 1948_ , with an earnest suggestion of Dickinson for the service. Louisa wasn’t wrong, he thought, if a little pedestrian. He added his own suggestion below hers, the ink visible to those who wished to see. Duffy’s cadence was alway fresh, the sentiments in _Rings_ timeless, perfect to be read aloud at a wedding, Royal or otherwise.

He looked up, and brought the date to mind. Somewhere amongst his stack of mail was the wedding invitation from Pete, his fellow pilgrim. Back in the new year when a plan was, as always, a hopeful thing, he’d plotted his route to end up in East Anglia around spring. A rummage through the pile—yes, there it was, and not far off now. A new destination to aim for.

Outside at the end of the afternoon, on a wooden bench in the quiet churchyard. It was early in the year still for many insects, but a pleasing number of bees made buzzing forays through the flowers and grass. Aziraphale let his eyes drift closed, finding them sun-blinded after the dim church interior and the close work. 

When he opened them to the flint exterior of the church, he saw a line of monks, wool robes dragging along the path, making their way out to the fields. One held a scythe, another an axe, a third a basket, and their voices rose in drowsy song.

“Salve, brothers,” he murmured, amused that he’d conjured up yet more monks out of the aether of layered history. And yet, as he blinked again to find the present, he thought warmly of how comforting it was, that wherever he looked—in time, in place—there were always people, that there would always be people. And that he, though different and not of their stock, had never wanted to be apart from them. 

What had Gregory said in answer to Augustine? _Things are not to be loved for the sake of a place, but places are to be loved for the sake of their good things._

Crowley understood this, too. It was another thing they’d shared together, another way that Aziraphale loved him.

The small package from the bookshop box was square, and wrapped with such insouciance it could only be deliberate.

There was a card, which he opened first as his pulse tripped. From Crowley’s mirror scrawl, he deciphered:

> _Angel,_
> 
> _I can’t believe I ever doubted that you’d take to demonic work. Three days after you left last autumn I was still trying to fight off your compulsion. But noooo, by day four there I was back at Bonham’s dropping another half a mil. You’ll like this one, I think, and as it’s your fault, it’s only fitting it’s a gift for you. I was going to wait until you’d finished your explorations, but then I thought, that’s the point, that’s what we fought for: there is no finish. So strap this on and see where it takes you. Let it sometimes take you to me._
> 
> _Crowley_

He laughed, eyes wet, and unfolded the paper wrapping. He didn’t recognise the maker’s name embossed on the leather case, but then he’d never had the deep affinity for time-pieces that Crowley had always shown.

He lifted the lid.

Once, a demon had shown an angel how he’d learned to manipulate time. Here, he showed the angel how humans had mastered the same.

An _objet d’art_ , a functional piece. Both beautiful and useful, and it felt magnificent to wear as the chestnut leather strap enclosed his wrist. A reversible watch with rounded rectangular faces. On the one side, in richly muted gold, a sunburst stretching across the face. Windows showed the rosy dawn and the cobalt-deep night as the cycles of the earth passed. On the other, a compass motif: the cardinal points inscribed in looping cursive, an arrow-hand pointing the hour, another the direction. 

How well Crowley knew him. It was never so much the gift, of course, as the giver and the thought behind it.

As he strolled back to Walberswick, sneaking admiring glances downward every so often, he found that his smile wouldn’t quite leave his face. Perhaps like an angel’s temptations, the demon had underestimated his own capacity for bringing joy.

The ferry, the beach, the bakery (coffee, and a sign-up for bread-making on Saturday), the walk through the marshes. Avocets that morning, their black and white plumage reflected in the still water and their curved beaks hoity-toity at his approach.

Helen let him in, patting the scorch marks on the heavy wooden door. (The tourists loved the story that told how they were scraped by the Devil, or by a ghostly beast of the countryside.) Aziraphale walked the circuit of the aisles, pausing by the organ to take a photograph of the automaton: Jack of the Clock, the little wooden man in his jaunty hat poised to strike a bell for the hour.

Crowley’s reply was instantaneous.

_oooh ding dong_

_Not as sophisticated as my lovely watch, but it has its own charm. Thank you again._

_glad you like it_

_no excuse for you to be late now_ — _self-preservation on my part_

_If you say so, my dear._

_you alright? hows the dreams_

His short response ( _Less confusing_ ) took an embarrassingly long time to compose, but then his dreams the night before had indeed been more straightforward. Vivid, to the point, and deeply, deeply pleasurable. 

Blame that on the little blue book—a notebook—he’d retrieved from Oxford, stuffed full of poetry for decades. Sequestered away from himself, too much of a reminder of how deeply he could _feel_. When he’d first re-opened its pages, the clippings from magazines and periodicals had seemed nothing more than sentimental. Worldly and earthbound. But now he had unravelled the fabric of his own story, he read them differently. Each line of love, and longing, and hope; they sang along with his own memories, and the new chords were resonant and aching.

But it wasn’t just the flush and prickle of desire that had stirred. Into that notebook he’d pasted all manner of verse: the small joys of living a life, the deep grief of its end. Wordsmiths who captured emotion so exquisitely, even an angel with a hundred languages gasped at the precision. 

Aziraphale worked through the day with verse on his lips, gluing and stitching the books, ornamenting the text. No illuminated capitals for these psalters, just a suggestion of a poem or a song, a line of scripture from another faith, all words that—in his heart—laid paths to the Divine. He marked the hours by his watch and the merry chime of the Jack of the Clock; in that moment and in a thousand others, too.

Word of the marginalia had spread. A steady stream of locals now popped in to see their great-granny’s signature or an uncle’s complaint that the minister needed to speak up. The pile of business cards grew horrifyingly low, too. 

He was elbow-deep in flour, shirt-sleeves rolled and watch in the protective pocket of his apron, when he caught sight of the glinting sparkle on his forearm. He scrubbed clean the patch of skin. The arc of laurel, the dove, the tree, the globe. And betwixt them, new markings, not old markings returned. They weren’t indigo ink, they were painted in ethereal gold. A sky full of stars: the constellations that could be seen from this island.

His breath caught as he stared down at the marks. Not so much adorning his skin as through it; windows to his nature. 

Slowly, methodically, he continued his working of the dough, grounding his corporeal self back into the moment. Heel of the palm to the centre. Push it away. Heel in the centre, push it away. Repetitive rhythms of creation. The texture changed under his hands, gradual and then all at once elastic with potential. 

The malleable dough brought to mind the working of clay. He thought of the stoneware brooch from St Ives, waiting patiently all those decades. He thought of the note he’d write to accompany it, the way he’d tuck it into the returned bookshop box for Crowley to discover. 

When he left the bakery, his oven-warm cob was wrapped in cloth and tucked under his bared arm. The stars glittered still. His watch was back on his wrist. Never, ever, had he felt such blessings.

Ferry and beach, bakery and marshes. On his walks, he’d seen harriers and woodpeckers; today a merlin, industriously beating blue-gray wings as it examined the prospects for brunch in the marshes below. It had eyed him up, too, slowing an arc of flight, then pivoted direction, up into the sky. 

He thought of the merlin, wheeling off to other business, as he sorted through the remainder of the books. Some volumes were only scuffed and tired; a judiciously applied miracle whittled his pile down to the last handful. The work would take him two more days: the choir came in tomorrow, and he wanted to hear them again before he left.

Dreaming again, this time of sailing:

Barges on the Thames, great galleys in the Bosphorus, a bark in the Bristol Channel. A tiny single-handed dinghy in the warm waters of Cornwall, tipping over at the slightest breeze. He capsized, and dove deep underwater, through a thicket of seaweed. It slapped about his face, his ankles. He broke upwards, surfaced to see the outline of a longship in the distance, oars crashing into the waves.

He surfaced from the dream with the taste of salt in his mouth. 

For all his cabin was a minute’s walk down to the sea, the spring had been cool and the water more bracing than inviting. He braved it that morning, waving at his jogging friend as he placed shoes atop his towel and hoped for the best from the lapping waves.

Cold, but not unbearably so, and calm enough to strike out some distance. Alone out here in the sea, he could loosen the tight edges of his Self, unfurl a little. No need to See, but a great deal to hear and feel. The edges of his island, his Principality. The humming mass of lives. Voices who needed to be heard, some who could be ignored. His choice, and happily so this thousand years. And if he wished—when he wished, surely—some other island, some other people. Good things were the virtues of a place, and those good things were _people_.

People, and an angel and a demon, blundering along. Making choices.

What he’d once considered blunders, his journey had gifted him back. His pilgrimage had woven that treasury back into a rich narrative, no-one’s but his own. His own lived experience, and as true as anything that he might ever know. He _had_ known it. Those memories were of actual times, places, people, feelings, thoughts. 

Just as in his dream, he dove deep under the waves, the current streaming past. The dive up-ended his balance, and it felt like plummeting through space, the unrelenting fear when he’d heard Her voice at Chatsworth, calling his name.

At the start of his journey he had feared his own cowardice, certain that his avoidance, those papered-over cracks, had been proof of such failing. Yet what was each memory but proof of what it meant to live on earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate? He’d lived his life. What were those memories, but that life?

At Lindisfarne, he’d nurtured friendships and ambitions, learned craft and song and ways of praise. At Lindisfarne, he’d mourned. 

He’d plunged himself into the discoveries the humans made of their world, delighted in the wondrous gifts of storytelling and art and music. He’d found himself too much and too little for human endeavours, and sore with it, over and over.

He’d made a friend and a companion and a lover, precious beyond all things but his own fear.

And at a tavern in the fens, he’d gotten soused on sour ale and apparently made an utter arse of himself.

How could an angel, who _lived_ a _life_ , who made _choices_ , ever be a coward?

How could a being who’d loved so deeply, and now held the evidence of it in his breast, ever think himself so apart from love again?

Aziraphale had known and felt every sort of love, from _philia_ and _mania_ and _ludus_ through to the _eros_ and _pragma_ thrumming through him that would always bear Crowley’s name.

He knew now that when She had called _his_ name— _Aziraphael_ —it was nothing but love. How could he have forgotten? It was ineffable recognition, an acknowledgement that he lived. That She was love, and he was love, too.  


* * *

  
Outside of Cambridge, for the joyous union of two lovers. Twilight had fallen. He stepped off the stone bridge. The River Ouse chattered behind him; beyond the towpath lay a white tent pavilion already glowing with light and the sounds of laughter. He was welcomed immediately into the wedding festivities, with champagne pressed into his hands and conversations paused to allow him space to join. He’d just met Pete’s Tante, when the man himself arrived with his bride-to-be. 

“You came!”

“And so I did.” Aziraphale took his outstretched hand in his own. Pete was looking dapper and flustered. “It’s lovely to see you again. This must be Jo?”

His fiancée radiated happiness and understandable nerves. “And you must be Ezra of the Angel selfies. Thanks for being here.” She grinned, cheeky. “Pete half-thought he’d made you up.”

Pete grinned. “To be fair, that car was unreal.” 

She elbowed him. “Anyway, he’s well chuffed you made it and so am I.”

“It’s absolutely my pleasure,” he told them. And it was. In the holiday atmosphere of seaside Walberswick, he’d never been short on contentment, but there was something singularly transporting about a wedding.

“Jo! Come on, you’ve got to get ready!” 

He and Pete watched as she was hustled off by a bridesmaid.

“I can’t believe it,” Pete told him. “That the day’s come round, I mean. Back in October it seemed like April was forever away.”

“How marvellous to have had this evening to look forward to, all through the winter.”

“Yeah. Glad we didn’t wait til summer. My sister thought we were mad to go for the riverside tent in April, but you said not to worry about the weather, so.”

He chuckled at Pete’s sheepish grin. “A small blessing to let you show up your sibling is the least I can do for a fellow pilgrim.” He tapped absently at the lapel of his waistcoat, where he’d fastened the scallop pin.

Pete glanced over at the tent, where the guests were beginning to gather. 

“Nearly time, I think.”

“Ok.” Pete drew in a breath, huffed it out. “Can’t believe I made this happen. Right, then. Doing this.” He squared his shoulders, eyes bright, and went off towards his future.

Aziraphale trailed behind, finding himself struck thoughtful by Pete’s words. 

As guests filed in, at the entrance to the marquee a knot of musicians was talking in hurried tones to a man with dreadlocks and a death grip on a ring box. Best man, clearly a brother with Pete’s same creased smile. A tall man carrying a violin said: “Her babysitter’s cancelled, there’s just no way. Shit, sorry. We’ll improvise.”

“It’s cool,” the best man just laughed and boomed into the tent. “Listen up, we got a musical emergency, paging all cellists, we need a cellist, stat!”

And so, drawn in, cheeks rosy, Aziraphale lent his hands to the trio needing a fourth. Swift introductions led to a black bow-tie being pressed into his hand. It most certainly did not match his checked shirt—he’d come casual, as the dress code had indicated—but the thought was there, and he tied it with a grin. 

The lead violinist gave him a grateful smile in return. “Don’t worry, nothing strenuous. Wedding march, some Pachelbel and Vivaldi, and um, do you know Gregory Isaacs?”

He considered. “4/4 _pizzicato_?”

“You’ll do.”

Resin and wine. The hum of horse-hair and the response of strings. He’d been transported by the songs of Blythburgh, but he’d neglected his own urge to make music for too long.

The sweep of _Spring_ from their bows was unexpectedly transporting. He let the music push through him, human and heavenly, and as the notes welled up—building from _his_ efforts, their joint endeavour—the _crescendo_ showed him clearly what Pete had meant. No longer waiting for what might come, but time now to make the future happen.

Later, as the party wound down to the warmth of good people and good company, Aziraphale brought out his pocket telephone. He took a photo of the fairy lights, the dancing feet and the shoes abandoned, the champagne at the edge of his picnic table. He sent them to Crowley.

Then he squared his shoulders, and eyes bright, he sent the photo he’d taken of a page in his blue volume. His handwriting; the Carver poem. Courage. Faith. Love:

> _And did you get what_
> 
> _you wanted from this life, even so?_
> 
> _I did._
> 
> _And what did you want?_
> 
> _To call myself beloved, to feel myself_
> 
> _beloved on the earth._

### Authors' notes

 **Bibere humanum est. Ne biber!  
** _To drink is human. Therefore, don’t drink!_ Look, we’re not Latin scholars, we used a combination of Google Translate and Blythe’s mate who did sixth form Latin at a fancy posh school.

 **Book of Common Prayer (and things therein)**  
Nowadays BCPs differ by Christian denomination and by country, but here’s an online [facsimile](https://archive.org/details/bookofcommonpray00chur_9/page/n147/mode/2up) of the OG 17th century kind, and a rather more readable and navigable [html version](https://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/intro/contents.html). 

**Carver poem**  
Aziraphale quotes [Late Fragment](https://allpoetry.com/Late-Fragment) by Raymond Carver.   
(Soft authors are soft.)

 **Cromer crab**  
Our Aziraphale likes [seafood](https://www.norfolk-norwich.com/news/the-famous-cromer-crab.php). 

**Dunwich**  
Ah, Dunwich. Which version do you want, the [romantic](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lost-town-dunwich) story of the town that fell into the sea after the _Grote Mandrenke_ , a giant medieval storm, or the slightly more geomorphologically and historically [accurate](http://www.dunwich.org.uk/history/) story of shifting sands and shifting commerce? Atlantis it isn’t, but it is an eerie and delightful place. Stand on the cliff’s edge and know that in just a few years the sea will have eroded where you stood completely. 

**Gregory’s answer to Augustine**  
Top-guy Gregory said: _Non enim pro locis res, sed pro bonis rebus loca amanda sunt_ (“Things are not to be loved for the sake of a place, but places are to be loved for the sake of their good things”) and we went, huh, well, that’s the tagline for this entire fic then.

 **Harvey’s[De Motu Cordis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercitatio_Anatomica_de_Motu_Cordis_et_Sanguinis_in_Animalibus)**  
“I was almost tempted to think...that the movement of the heart was only to be comprehended by God.” 

**Holy Trinity Blythburgh**  
At one point, we had a whole chapter revolving around Aziraphale’s stint as a Victorian locum priest out here on the Suffolk flatlands. But we gave him an outing as a Reverend in 1703 and so another seemed like overkill. While Durham Cathedral is The Moste Sublime, the Cathedral of the Marshes is The Moste Lovely, and we are endlessly grateful to [Duckie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheldrake/pseuds/sheldrake) for sharing her part of the world with us. This [piece](http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/Blythburgh.htm) is a terrific overview with loads of pics.

 **Jack of the Clock**  
A nifty little [automaton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquemart_\(bellstriker\)) man who comes out and strikes your clock bell. 

**Poetry**  
Poems referenced in the prayer books include:  
[It’s all I have to bring today](https://poets.org/poem/its-all-i-have-bring-today-26), Emily Dickinson / [Rings](https://vimeo.com/102934530), Carol Ann Duffy / [Church Going](https://www.shigeku.org/xlib/lingshidao/waiwen/larkin.htm), Philip Larkin / [Love divine, all loves excelling](https://hymnary.org/text/love_divine_all_love_excelling_joy_of_he), Charles Wesley / [On the Death of her Body](https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~tf/poem7.html), JK Baxter / [Dirge without Music](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52773/dirge-without-music), Edna St Vincent Millay / [The lowest trees have tops](https://www.bartleby.com/331/324.html), Dyer (attr.) / [A few rules for beginners](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48993/a-few-rules-for-beginners), Katherine Mansfield 

Poems carefully scrapbooked by Aziraphale in the blue Oxford notebook include:  
[Late Fragment](https://allpoetry.com/Late-Fragment), Raymond Carver / [Desire](https://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/alice-walker/desire-175/), Alice Walker / [Shadows](https://utmedhumanities.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/shadows-d-h-lawrence-2/), DH Lawrence / [Every day you play](https://hellopoetry.com/poem/9920/every-day-you-play/), Pablo Neruda / [Litany](https://allpoetry.com/poem/9742291-Litany-by-Billy-Collins), Billy Collins / [A Man in Assynt](https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/man-assynt-extract/), Norman MacCaig / [Zolf-'āšofte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolf-%27%C4%81%C5%A1ofte), Hafez / [Rain](http://cottertherealdeal.blogspot.com/2009/05/rain-poem-by-hone-tuwhare.html), Hone Tuwhare

Please apply to the comments should you like to applaud or challenge these choices, or indeed suggest others, as this is an incomplete list.

 **Pommel-guard of cloisonné garnets**  
We recently had a chance to get up close to some of the [beauties](http://thethegns.blogspot.com/2012/06/hog-edsten-pommelcap.html) in the Staffordshire Hoard.

 **Prehistoric forest**  
If you want to talk about exciting treasures beneath the North Sea, [this](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/divers-find-prehistoric-forest-dating-back-10000-years-submerged-in-north-sea-off-norfolk-coast-10003703.html) is totally up there with Dunwich. 

**Psalm 143**  
Aziraphale thought about this one by the ruins of the Greyfriars priory on the Dunwich clifftop. [Phwoar](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+143&version=KJV) that’s some inner turmoil.

 **Rotten Boroughs**  
Crowley loved a rotten [borough](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs). There was a whole other historic chapter we never wrote about parliamentary hijinx. One day. (Circe says mournfully. Blythely’s [Corridors of Power](https://archiveofourown.org/series/43141) will have to tide you over.)

 **Suffolk sunrise**   
Just because it’s nice to have a [visual](https://www.instagram.com/p/B65Q-XBAwXf/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link). 

**The Two Magpies**  
This is a real place, with excellent coffee and sourdough, and delicious patisserie to satisfy the most discerning of angels. We kept its name because those folk kept us caffeinated and provisioned in style on holidays and we’re happy to send any business their way. The magpie motif throughout the story was not deliberate, but we got to the plotting of this chapter and realised it was there all the time. Bonus from their instagram: the sounds of wind through the [rushes](https://www.instagram.com/p/B_ckoJajmmv/) by the river Blyth. 

**Wrist-watch, Gift of a**  
Readers, you have to do a little creative imagining here. This watch doesn’t exist (that we know of). It’s a combination of this [Art Deco](https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24632/lot/52/) styling by Jaeger LeCoultre and the double-dialled fabulousness and celestial navigation of [these](https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/important-watches-n09159/lot.30.html) [extraordinary](https://www.patek.com/en/collection/grand-complications/6102P-001) Patek Philippe “complications”.

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 17

[Scarborough Fair](https://open.spotify.com/track/71YLn3mU4CMs36vghDRHsz?si=dzxeq3jyTleYFNdZQqaePg) (Arr. Christopher Gabbitas)  
The Kings Singers

[Recomposed Spring I](https://open.spotify.com/track/5xbuJuQsTVheVZvX2AJVIv?si=YtQDWXeTQuKygAJ5ZG0s7Q)  
Max Richter, Vivaldi, Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin

#### Perfume

[Nightingale](https://www.zoologistperfumes.com/products/nightingale), by Zoologist  
Spring blossoms and the woody quiet of the Cathedral of the Marshes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find Blythely's meta on the themes and writing of Chapter 16 and 17 on [Tumblr](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/621931423981551616/planning-permission) here. In which, much is said about writing emotional maturity and catharsis for eternal beings, amongst other story ramblings.


	18. In the Offing, May

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "offing" is the part of the sea that can be seen from land, but is not the immediate shore. That is, an imminent but not immediate event.

Out past Cambridge, near Mildenhall, and he stopped to take his bike down from the rack. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and the flat, fast landscape beckoned. He had a speed record to beat. 

“Right you. Go find him then. Won’t say keep out of trouble, the two of you are a nightmare, don’t even know what I was thinking putting you together like that—”

The Bentley sped off into the distance, tail-lights flashing. Poor thing had been terribly bored out from London; ugh, endless Lea Valley commuter belt and then the interminable golf courses. Not that the green belt once they’d passed the M25 had been any better. Crowley enjoyed the odd power-pylon for a side-project, but in terms of landscape interest they were up there with quaint villages and mega-retailer distribution warehouses. 

He snapped on his helmet, plotting his route out through scrubby Breckland then onward. Insects droned in the grass, and a few stray periwinkles and a dandelion perked up for him when he bent to check the chain and gear tension. All good to go. He swung a leg over, grinned out at the empty road, and clipped down into the waiting pedal.

(“Good morning, my dear.”

He’d been the one to ring; stupid then that the angel’s voice rang through him like that, surprising him with a wrench of longing that sent his throat tight.

“Assuming I’m not interrupting your honeymoon.”

A chuckle. “Not my wedding, no.”

The photographs had been soft-focus, light and wistful. “I remember that time in Sicily when I had to rescue you from the altar.”

“You didn’t let me forget it for sixty years, I recall. Terribly embarrassing. That poor woman.”

“It was hilarious, angel.”

“Yes, it was.”

Crowley stared up at the treeline. The birds were waking up, so was the sun. He’d seen the texts when they’d first come through; it had taken him hours before he’d trusted himself enough to pick up the phone.)

Amusement as he passed through Thetford forest, letting a vapour-trail of mild chaos wreak havoc with the early Bank Holidaying kiddies and their hapless parents. Emerging from under the pines, he took a hairpin turn back to the A road at a decent pace and nearly overbalanced. 

Well that wouldn’t bloody do, to have the wind so uncooperative. Crowley made it cooperate, his hiss twisting into the gusts and turning them about until they suited. Overhead a fighter jet blasted by, out from one of the RAF bases. Baring his teeth at the challenge, he spun his gears higher and faster.

(“You shouldn’t have done that. Sent me a love poem.”

There was a robin poking about in the bracken, searching for an early breakfast. Disturbed by his passing, it flashed its red breast at him and flew off. Crowley stalked on in his agitation. 

“That depends,” Aziraphale replied, “on why you think that.” He sounded cautious, but his words weren’t cautious at all. “I _wanted_ to send you a love poem. And I wanted you to have it, from me.”

He couldn’t find anything to say, and so walked on in silence.

“Crowley? Does that make it any different?”

“It’s all different, and it’s all the same. That’s why you shouldn’t do it.”

He had told Aziraphale that he loved him. That he always had. That he always would. He’d stood in the wreckage of his own heart, centuries ago, and he had begged. And now the angel remembered every moment. Aziraphale remembered, and he seemed to _understand_ , for the first time in a very long time. Possibly for the very first time of all.

That was. That was surprisingly _difficult_.)

The rapeseed was in flower. He blew past a blur of vibrant yellow fields, the wind singing behind him, pushing him ever faster. On through Norwich, from the west. Past the sorts of country house hotels that were plentiful and predictable enough to have his demon instincts itching with possibilities for mundane misery. He skidded over the cobbles and bridges in the centre of town, then headed north on the Wroxham Road.

(Crowley glanced back up the hill, towards the shell that was starting to stretch out and settle into the slope. He burned with the need to bring Aziraphale here, to have his admiration and wonder. The angel, on the ridge, allowing Crowley to find him there as he looked beyond human gaze to the faraway sea. Allowing Crowley to bring him hom—

“I’m sorry for my behaviour, for the way I treated you, and us.”

“You’ve told me that already. I’ve accepted your apology _already_.”

“I’ll tell you as many times you need to hear it.”

“Angel, shut it, _please_. I won’t be your hair shirt. It’s boring, overdone. Let’s leave it, yeah? It happened. I’m glad you’re ok, that you know now.”

From this angle, still looking up at the half-built house, he could see where he needed to make small adjustments on the upper levels. The sightline wasn’t quite right. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale was saying. “You keep telling me it’s alright, that it’s in the past. And I can see that’s been important to you, to be able to have that.”

“Good. So can we—?”

“I don’t wish to ruin your equilibrium but I won’t lie to you, Crowley. I’m through with half-truths. I want you to feel like you can be through with half-truths too.”

He didn’t like where this was going. And then Aziraphale said: “I’ve been angry, so very angry. At myself, at you.”

“ _Me_ —! You’re the one who—”

“My darling.” He sighed. “There, you see? No more half-truths.”

Crowley rang off.)

There was an irony in riding so fast—outpacing his own uneasy thoughts, only to arrive faster at where they were headed. But there was also an unmistakable pleasure in skimming across the miles, the smooth rotation of well-oiled wheels, the scent of budding hawthorn and diesel fumes mixing across his tongue. 

(He’d texted, an hour or so later, crouching on the slope beside the saplings.

 _the poem_ _  
_ _the answers no_ _  
_ _but no half truths so yes too_

_always known you love me_

The reply came immediately. 

_But that’s not the same as feeling beloved._

“Fuck you, Aziraphale,” he snarled into the phone.

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

He could hear it. His tension released on a shaky breath of acknowledgment. “OK.” 

After a long pause, Aziraphale said, “I’d like us to talk. As friends. Soon?”

Crowley winced, but he felt wrung out and he wanted that too. “Alright.”

“Is it?” 

He laughed suddenly, at the absurdity of their awkward dance. “For the love of Satan. Yes, it’s fine. Shall we call it tickety-boo?”

“More boo than tickety, I suspect.”

“It’s a sliding scale, angel, you know that. Let me know where then, and when.”

“Neutral ground,” Aziraphale decided. “Not London. Join me here in a few days? I have in mind the perfect place for lunch.”)

He slowed only on the approach to the village, terrorising motorists by being farther away than their mirrors made him appear. He followed the B roads down along the River Bure towards a Tudor-timbered pub. Ugh, not his preferred sort of thing, but he imagined it would serve _something_ the angel would have died for if he could. The parking lot was full, but the cycle stands weren’t. As he was about to pull in, his Aziraphale-sense came like a warm, friendly breeze through the aether to urge him onward. He let himself coast past the turn-off, craning curiously to see...ah.

There was a sailing club just down the road from the pub.

 _A sailing club_.

Crowley charged up the lane, already standing one-footed on his pedal for the moving dismount by the time he saw the fawning humans around his car. Aziraphale shone in the sunshine—gorgeous, sandy-bearded as he usually was when he took to the water, one hand eager on the Bentley’s bonnet and the other waving his point with beaming enthusiasm.

“Fuck’s sake, angel.” He tore off sunglasses, vanished his helmet, and stalked towards the group. 

Aziraphale, bloody-of-course, lit up and gave a happy little wave of greeting. “Crowley! You’ve made it! Excellent. We were all just admiring the—”

“You,” he growled at his car. “Knew you couldn’t stay out of trouble.”

“Oh, she’s been a dream, I don’t—”

He rounded. “And you. _Another_ boat?”

He saw Aziraphale’s nostrils flare, taking in the animal-heat-dust scent of him after his exertion on the road. Then: his answering, curving smile. Oh fuck, his smile, that smile—he hadn’t looked like that in _decades_ , longer even—and that smile was directed right at him, at Crowley, all _certainty_ , and he—

“Stay,” he told one of the humans, leaned his bike against him, and turned heel for the club.

“Give me,” he ordered the bartender, “all the rum you’ve got.

When he emerged again, having ducked his head under the tap in the loos and clutching two bottles of reserve dark and some desperation Bacardi, he found the crowd dispersed and the car properly parked. 

“You really ought to get a kickstand,” Aziraphale said mildly. He was holding the cycle lightly in one hand. The wheels were spinning from his crackling proximity, so quickly that the spokes were blurred.

He flipped his dripping hair off his face, drying it with the movement. “It’s a road bike.”

“If you say so.” The angel’s tone was still mild, but determined now. “You’ll join me?”

“Lunch, you said.”

“We’ll take it with us.”

Crowley looked away towards the moorings. “Neutral ground, you said.” As if any vessel named by the angel Aziraphale, blessed by his hands, could _ever_ be considered neutral.

“I—hmm.” His smile had dimmed, but his eyes were soft. “Please.”

Crowley crossed his arms, cradling the bottles. They were cool against his overheated body, pressing against his sweat-soaked jersey. “Why?”

“Because I think we both need to spend some time together.” Aziraphale shifted the weight of the cycle, the wheels stopping suddenly with a whispery sound. His wrist-watch caught Crowley’s eye, flashing gold in the sun.

Impulse had him agreeing before he could form a contrary thought. “Yes. I’ll come.”

Kind: “But?”

He felt—he felt turned on, tuned out, turned around. Everything buzzed, yammered in his ears and in his jitter-filled veins. He wanted to wrest his bike back, to leap astride and to feel each downward stroke propel him faster, away. He wanted to stay, to touch, to listen, to talk, to—

“Just. Gah. Go easy, angel, yeah?”

“Whatever you need, Crowley.”

And he meant it; Crowley knew him down to his atoms, and the angel _meant_ it.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” He couldn’t keep the brittleness out even as the sentiment flooded him with wary, confused delight. “Sorry. Sorry, I’m...” He trailed off. “I want to be here.”

“I understand.” Aziraphale smiled again, creases beside his eyes, then he turned towards the quay, carrying the bike.

He followed, bringing the rum.

A light blue with no yellows to dull it, and a red mainsail in the local style. Freshly etched along the bow was her name, _Columba XVII._

He laid a careful palm along the hull, feeling for the shape of her. Brand new, chrome gleaming and fibreglass warm to the touch, she sat sprightly and expectant alongside. He didn’t need to turn to know that Aziraphale was radiating something similar beside him.

“Nice,” he acknowledged. He stretched from the quay to step onto the stern and over the rail. Shivers down his spine as the protections settled across his skin. Oh, the angel had clearly been restless awaiting his arrival if he’d woven them as intricately and carefully as this; fine knots of a net enclosing the ship—and an all-but-invisible sigil at the base of the mast. Crowley darted out his tongue. Citrus, sunscreen, welcome, anticipation, lust.

He cleared his throat, and set down the bottles. “Want to pass me my bike?”

When that was stowed, he turned back to the quay. Aziraphale was watching him.

“You look good,” Crowley said, because it was true. “Both you and your boat. Come aboard, then, Captain.”

He reached down to clasp his forearm. Strong fingers closed around his own arm, and Crowley pulled. When Aziraphale settled onto the deck beside him, he found he couldn’t let go. It had been a blur at a distance, but now all the ink that had resurfaced from the angel’s travels could be seen in all its glory. Nearly a full sleeve of markings now, down from the elbow, and amongst the lines—stars of _gold_ , the light of his Grace seeping through onto this plane. Aziraphale had never had that before, never before borne Her marks so visibly.

His fingers tightened as he held fast to the skin he could trust himself to touch.

“Captain?” Aziraphale was saying, teasing, “You of all beings should recall when I was made Commodore; it was a first-class thwarting if I do say so myself,” but there was a tense note echoed in his eyes when Crowley finally managed to lift his stare.

“Angel.” His grip tightened again, convulsive, before he forced himself to release his arm.

But Aziraphale hadn’t released _his_ arm. “You probably shouldn’t lick them without a controlled experiment first,” he said, “I’ll let you try later,” and Crowley felt his eyes go wide because apparently _no half-truths_ was going to mean a lot more sauce and _that_ was a thing. 

Aziraphale laughed, and his thumb caressed Crowley’s wrist very, very lightly before he let go. “My dear, if you could only have seen your face.”

“I’m not sure I brought enough rum.”

“It’s all right,” the angel told him, chuckling still. “There’s cachaça in the galley.”

It was welcoming inside, too—gentle shades of buff and coffee that were centuries away from some of the bilge-holds they’d spent time in. She was trim and neat, but with more than enough space for them to circle each other and sturdy enough to take the weight of the elephant in the room.

He surveyed the set-up, taking in the door to the head and the salle d’eau; the efficient and well-provisioned galley; the comfortable saloon area with its fold-away table; closed doors to two berths. Behind him, Aziraphale was humming as he put away groceries, leaving out what appeared to be an entire string-bag full of limes. Great minds. Feeling abruptly claustrophobic in the moment, Crowley went to wash. 

He shucked off his cycling shorts and jersey, towelling off the mud and sweat the mundane way. He glanced down at his own skin as he worked. Toned, and scarred in places, and so very human in its wear and lines. On top of his tan, the slight smudge of soot and fire-flush that had never quite faded from the day of the near-Apocalypse. 

He hadn’t shut the door properly, and the sway of the boat had drifted it open behind him. In the mirror he saw the solid slope of Aziraphale’s shoulders as he bent over a cutting board. He was slicing limes, deftly, and Crowley’s mouth went wet.

He shook the sweep of his hair into something resembling order then looked up again as he put the towel down. The angel was staring back at him, at the bared skin of his back, his ass, his chest reflected in the mirror. Aziraphale set down his knife, still looking, and without breaking eye-contact, Crowley made the door click shut.

When he emerged some minutes later, Aziraphale was shaking a cocktail mixer. A glance up at Crowley’s re-appearance: “Oh, you can’t be serious.”

He’d done his Ralph Lauren worst—an oversized wide-necked jumper with broad white and navy stripes, slim-fit red shorts—and Aziraphale deserved every moment of the preppie horror for springing a _boat_ on him.

He put his hands on the counter, leaning into his space. “You’re going too fast for me,” he hissed. 

He knew his meaning, the call-back, would be clear, and it clearly was. Aziraphale froze. 

“You’re pages ahead, skimming for the end, and I’m just opening the chapter to decide if I feel like reading it or not. I know you’re eager, Aziraphale, and anxious. I’ve been there too; you have _no fucking idea_. Or maybe you do now, I don’t know. But that’s the point, yeah? You said you wanted to talk, as friends.”

“I do want that.” Aziraphale turned fully to face him.

“You haven’t said a word, as a friend, except an apology I didn’t want to hear, and a dead poet’s sentiments.”

“I—yes.” Aziraphale dropped his gaze to the chopping board, and took the knife to peel off a circling twist of lime. Garnished a glass. Peeled another, wiped down the knife carefully. “Let me tell you what I remembered, and let me tell you why I forgot. To get—we’ll get back to the same page.”

Crowley nodded, the motion stilted, trepidation warring with relief. “That’ll do as a start.”  
  


* * *

**  
Lake Windermere, seven years earlier**

_Columba_ XVI had been no more than a glorified dinghy, a little day-sailing runabout that Aziraphale had kept stashed in a marina in the Lake District and that Brother Francis mentioned in passing one day when Warlock was playing boats on the pond.

Nanny had proffered a stuffed kraken for the pond games, in the hopes the child would tentacle his toy boats and their Lego passengers down into the mud. No result on that score, but Warlock did rip off a tentacle in protest at an early bedtime.

“I’m NEARLY SIX now, Nanny, it’s NOT FAIR.”

Nowhere near monstrous enough behaviour for the spawn of Satan. Crowley headed downstairs for Nanny’s sherry and to hatch a maritime plan with the angel. 

“Now Harriet, I thought a trip to the Lakes for half-term. Warlock’s so keen on boats, and I’ve a friend who can take us out on Windermere. Gives you and Thaddeus some time together.”

Harriet Dowling’s face was a warring portrait of grateful indulgence for her son’s latest craze, mortification that her planned dirty weekend wasn’t a secret, and reluctant last-minute employer suspicion:

“Ah, that would be—if you don’t mind, though, who’s the friend?”

“Oh, an old girlfriend from school.”

Over sherry, Aziraphale had wondered if he was too terribly out of practise with a bosom, but he warmed to the task enthusiastically enough and met Crowley and a very excitable Warlock on a blustery Cumbrian jetty. There was a jaunty ponytail restraining a tumble of bouncy curls, a polo shirt that indicated some homework had gone into the geometry of the bosom, and a pair of knees under khaki shorts that demonstrated if Aziraphale could put a dimple on it, she would.

The boy was introduced to Nanny’s friend Aziraphale:

“That’s a funny name,” Warlock frowned.

Crowley enjoyed the angel’s long huff for composure before she said, “And what did _you_ say your name was again, dear?”

And wrangled into a life-jacket: “Oh there’s no need for that.”

“It’s not for him, you numpty, it’s so we don’t get the Lake Rangers boarding us.”

The little craft set off. Aziraphale hoisted up the spinnaker into the strong breeze and sat, a proprietary hand on the tiller steering them out towards the nearest holm. 

Crowley unzipped her sensible waxed weatherproof and leaned back against the side of the boat while Warlock shot a series of quick-fire questions at Aziraphale. The angel’s mighty forbearance was a thing to behold, but after a time even she buckled under the onslaught and produced a hank of rope and a children’s book on nautical knots from out of the air.

“Nice one,” Crowley murmured.

“The wee dear,” Aziraphale said, but there was grit in her teeth, and they fell quiet.

More common than not, these silent hours spent together with the Dowling child. For all the angel blowing hot and cold these last centuries had frustrated her, Crowley treasured the delicate equilibrium they navigated in the present. And it was an ocean of difference from their observations over the millennia, watching or wincing at human actions that changed the meandering paths of history.

She glanced to Warlock. He’d clambered on the boom in search of knots. A drop in wind sent the mainsail sharply leeward and he shrieked, dangling over the side before managing to find his feet again. 

Crowley twitched forward on instinct, but a hand clamped down on her arm. She jerked to look at Aziraphale. Whose face was pale and her lips uncharacteristically thin where she pressed them together. 

_Satan_ , thought Crowley. 

Aziraphale let go of her arm.

How many times had Crowley spooled out the consequences of removing the boy from the situation altogether? It seemed she was not the only one.

The water was choppy in the middle of the lake, and the wind had picked up. The boy’s grip would be precarious.

“Is this why we’re here?” asked the angel. Her face, her voice, were impassive.

Crowley shrugged. They hadn’t talked about it; the biggest thwart of all time, and she had no real idea where Aziraphale stood on the matter of the continued existence of the Antichrist.

Out on the boom, Warlock squealed. “Look, Nanny, I’m—”

He fell, hitting the water.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Crowley hissed. 

She was standing in a moment, but Aziraphale was faster. The angel dove cleanly into the water, strong strokes taking her to the flailing child. Crowley helped pull the boy back into the boat.

“There, there, little beast. Nanny’s got you. No, no need to thank Aziraphale, she’s a minion put on this earth to do your bidding.”

Aziraphale wrung out her hair. “I suppose that answers that,” she said, her tone, at least, dry.

Crowley snarled overtop of Warlock’s head. “You could have let it happen.” Her hand curved possessively around the boy’s shivering shoulder. She was shaking.

“You thought I would.”

“You _should_ have.”

“I can’t,” said the angel. “And neither, it appears, can you.”

“I guess we know that now.” Something inside her, already wrought tight, fractured and crumbled. 

Aziraphale didn’t reply. She adjusted the rigging, coming about to catch a gust. Then she said quietly, “At least we’re clear. We know where we stand.”

Crowley nodded, and they sailed out of the choppy waters, into the calm. On the same page: the boy would live, would turn eleven, could kill them all. There wasn’t much to say, after that.   
  


* * *

**  
The Broads, present**

There was almost too much to say, now. Already, Crowley could see the great swirling threads of it hovering in the air. The cabin might be spacious, but they needed a Norfolk breeze and the open air for this.

“Casting off, then?” He picked up the drink—a daiquiri, the dangerous balance of cloying sugar and acid limes—and slugged back a mouthful. Aziraphale quirked his mouth and drained his own.

On deck, Crowley headed for the bow lines, but was called back:

“Wind’s onshore.” 

Stern first, then. On the quay, he unwound the lines from the bollards, the new rope flexible and smooth. Vaulted back on deck. Whorled tidy figure eights of rope around shiny new cleats, as the angel busied himself with the engine and the wheel.

Crowley blinked as he heard himself mutter an “aft away”. The _Columba_ rumbled into life under his feet as he paced up the deck to the bow. Swapped the ropes, front to middle, and watched as Aziraphale turned hard on the steering, arcing the stern of the boat out into the channel.

Crowley cast off the last bow spring and jumped up on the ladder to the deck. The engine purred as they reversed out into the channel, coming about. In the cockpit, Aziraphale lifted the bench seating and Crowley collected the fenders off the side, handing them down, one by one, feeling the rhythm of the way they worked together and revelling in it as they raised the sail and the afternoon wore on.

The sun was near setting. Crowley shrugged on the bright yellow jacket he’d found below and watched the birds in the reeds by the waterside. Aziraphale was below, puttering. It was...nice. He scoffed at himself for the word, but well, it felt right.

“What are you hissing about, my serpent?” The angel came up the steps, pulling on a cream cardigan as he went. He settled on the bench opposite Crowley.

“Sit beside me,” Crowley offered; a dare.

Aziraphale simply smiled and sat close enough on the cushions beside him that their thighs touched. 

“You used to hook your ankle around mine when we sat like this,” Crowley said; a test.

“I could never resist. But I thought you’d rather we talked?”

“You’re the one with things to say.”

“And so I am.” Aziraphale carefully took up his hand. His skin was warm, soft as he squeezed lightly. They had been close, closer than this in the last year. Crowley on his lap; Aziraphale’s hand at his nape; tempted mouths grazing tempting skin. But that hand cradling his felt like a dare, a test, of the angel’s own.

“So tell me,” urged Crowley.

So he did.

Aziraphale was the one good thing for which Crowley had never had a long-game, had never nurtured for a victory or used as a means to an end. How could he have? There could be no cause to create effect with a soul as elemental as air and fire, light and breath. There had only ever been the free will of two very old friends. 

Any hopes for Crowley had been fragile things, never allowed to take full root. There had been no expectations. ( _Had he really expected anything more? Foolish demon._ ) And in a way that made it easier to sit there and take it, in the moment. To let the words wash over him, to let them electrify and soothe and agitate and erode. To let himself feel, as he needed to. To let himself look away at the water, when to look at Aziraphale directly would have been too much intensity to bear.

Aziraphale remembered, now. He spoke of deep friendship, of good times and of bad. The eighteenth century: of eighty years’ growing intimacy, cultivated from unexpected kindness and welcome teasing on a mournful night. What it had meant to him then, and what it meant to him now that time had ripened his understanding of how important it had been. He spoke of decades of passion, of passionate exploration, as one century had slipped into another. He spoke of love. And when he spoke of love, of being both lover and beloved, Crowley found that he could not look away.

As he listened, Crowley heard a truth: this wasn’t fixing cracks or shoring up foundations. This was clearing a fresh site to say, this is a good place with a promising aspect and as much scope for creativity, for pleasure, for longevity, as your imaginations will allow. This was the hope that he’d let germinate when the angel had first spoken of _us_ and asked to remember.

Eventually, Aziraphale’s hoarse voice fell silent. But as the night sounds heightened around them once more, there was still a question to be asked.

“Why?”

A sigh. “We don’t speak of this,” Aziraphale murmured. “We’ve always left it be.” 

There was warning, heartbreak, there. Crowley knew, then; knew, of course, of course, of _course_. 

It was always Her, always, _always_ —

On a surge of shame, of fear, of violence, he clutched Aziraphale’s hand until his claws were breaking skin, as he hissed his distress.

So the angel spoke about his God, and how She had Spoken to him, and what he had heard then but understood now. And when he finished, Crowley found that he could not loosen his grip; that Aziraphale would not let go of his painful hold. 

They wept together, and that—

It wasn’t fine, but it felt better: rain on parched earth, a new bend in the river, a shoot on the branch. 

The wake of a passing cruiser rocked the boat back and forth, and just like that, Crowley felt a heavy fatigue wash over him. He closed his eyes against the waning light, feeling the expectant weight of Aziraphale’s gaze on him, wanting an answer, wanting resolutions.

He prised his hand free, finally, and scrubbed it through his hair, scratching into the stubble at the back. “Angel, look. I can’t do this anymore.”

Aziraphale went pale and Crowley realised what he’d just said. “No, don’t get your knickers in a twist, I’m just exhausted. Done in. I rode sixty miles and you’ve poured rum and revelations into me all day—”

“Oh, my dear, of course.”

“I want to sleep.”

He waved off Aziraphale’s attempts to tell him about spare pillows and headed for the berth in the bow. He could grumble about the small space, but some serpentine part of his nature craved nothing more than to nestle down here, walls and ceiling and floor all within touching distance. He thought of the house on the Downs, the shell of the upper floor stretching deeply back underneath the slope, the way the walls felt safe and cool around him. Elemental, newly made from ancient earth. Just before he’d left, he’d dug the lightwells down into the space from the slope above, and spent a day watching the play of light as the sun moved across the sky.

The last of the dusk lit the cabin through a skyhatch from above. He propped it open to hear the water lap against the boat, shed his clothes, and slid under the sheet.  
  


* * *

  
The recurring dream: aloft, in a hot air balloon.

Sometimes, the dream was nothing more than a tour over the earth and the tranquil sensation of suspension in air. The landscape beneath was sometimes literal, a panorama survey of events recent and past. Bustling human lives, his own interventions veering them on or off course. Sometimes, he looked down into Hell, a labyrinthine set of dank hallways made no more navigable for the birds-eye view.

Often, the balloon ascended from a scoured, sandy plain. Crowley would move to the other side of the basket and find himself flying out over a cliff edge. A misty landscape would gradually reveal itself. Deep tropical forests, icy tundra, crowded marketplaces where the calls of commerce reached high above. Or rows of military tents, battlefields and slaughter. Endless shingled rooftops, patchwork fields, skyscrapers perched on hillsides. Amongst them all, he would spot himself, and panic. He had a job to do, what was he doing, up here in the sky? He belonged down there.

Sometimes, he would jump.

Most of the time he was alone in the basket. There were the trippy dreams where, as the snake, he wound himself around his own human form to reach the heat of the fire. If Aziraphale appeared, it would be to argue the direction of the wind, or the distance to the ground. Crowley would adjust the burner, and the angel would be gone.

He would fly on, then.

Tonight, he drifted over London, following the bronze ribbon of the Thames. Far in the western distance a kraken hauled itself up on the horizon. From the east, an aeroplane came in on the Heathrow approach, but as it came closer he saw it was just a magpie. 

“One for sorrow,” it croaked, landing on the basket and shitting copiously.

“Two for mirth,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley turned to see the angel in a column of fire, straddled on top of the burner. He stood, planted with his hands behind his back, counting the ropes with nods of his head.

That made sense. Angels were fire and air. 

“Five for heaven.” Aziraphale reached for a cable, and fossicked in his coat pocket to pull out his pocket knife. “I had this sharpened recently.” It flashed, reflecting sun and flame.

He sliced the rope. 

“Six for hell,” the magpie croaked, and flew away.  
  


* * *

  
He woke to the sound of splashing, the rhythmic slap of water against the hull: strong at first, fading then returning. Either Aziraphale was swimming, or they were being surveilled by the local otters. He half-listened for a time, tugging on the faint strings of his dream, willing the details back. 

The _Columba XI_ had been a hot air balloon, one of the first. Aziraphale hauled the crate out of Paris on the back of a donkey cart. (“I couldn’t leave it, they were about to torch the Baron’s _maison._ ” Unsurprisingly he’d not been able to leave the other crate, hurriedly loaded with the Baron’s top shelf volumes.) But the angel only took her up a handful of times, and when Crowley grumbled that the silk was mouldering, Aziraphale gifted the balloon on cheery condition she kept her name.

(That meant she sank just like four of the other _Columbas_ Crowley had skippered, but she was a good runabout while she lasted.)

What was that dream, then? Those bloody magpies. Wasn’t it two for joy? He lay warm and half-drifting, holding on to the picture of Aziraphale unscathed by mundane human fire, his blessed certainty in cutting through a rope, even as it unbalanced Crowley’s footing.

Roused again, to the sound of brisk tapping and (more immediately) the scent of coffee.

“Ughnnh,” was as close to speech as he managed, flicking in the direction of the door to click it open.

Aziraphale stood in the doorway, an actual vision: shining curls, linen shirtsleeves, and crisp striped apron. He held up a mug of coffee in one hand, cafetière in the other, and raised his eyebrows as if there was even a question to be asked.

“Yesss,” Crowley mumbled, and the angel left both within reach with a snort and headed to the galley.

Two cups later, a bit of glaring at the wardrobe to stock itself with some creature comforts of his own, and snatches of the dream surfaced back to him.

“That magpie rhyme,” he called, slinging his parrot dressing gown on. “How’s it go again? One for sorrow, two for…”

“Mirth,” Aziraphale popped his head up from rummaging in the cupboard. He gave Crowley a long look, his gaze skimming him from head to foot as he took in the parrots. He blinked, swallowed, then shook his head and smiled. “Or joy? I think it depends...”

Crowley glanced up through the open hatch: a bright day, still cool, the wind negligible. He could already anticipate the hum of tyres at high speed on the road. “Gonna nip off for a spin this morning, angel.”

“...I suspect you’d have to ask the magpies themselves. They’re the ones who know their own rhymes.”

Well, he knew a couple he could ask. He crabbed down the saloon, more to make a point about being on a boat than real lack of room, and perched on the edge of the table. Aziraphale had a spread of assorted ingredients out and was methodically demolishing a croissant. Up close, his hair was damp.

“You _were_ swimming.” Crowley sifted through the food on the counter, his appetite stirring. He opened up the cool box. 

“Mmm.” Aziraphale thumbed pastry off his plate. “Did I wake you?’

“Eh, it’s fine. Was nice, just listening. What else is in here?”

“How far will you ride? I can sail to meet you—look, what are you after?”

“Steak and eggs,” he decided.

Aziraphale laughed aloud. “Really? Not like you.”

“I’m hunnngry. Oooh, those mushrooms look good. Would you do that garlic thing?”

Another laugh. “Not in here. I’d need a bigger kitchen with better ventilation. Onions only.”

“Hmph.” He idled around the saloon to the sound of Aziraphale’s rapid chopping. The little navigation table provided a map, and he traced the radius of a morning’s ride, looking for a suitable rendezvous destination. A glance over at the angel, deft always with a good meal in sight, slicing a chilli into perfect circles—Crowley looked away. He should heed his own caution. Best not to skim chapters too far ahead himself, to imagine this easy morning as routine. 

The chopping stopped, and Crowley turned hungrily back at the sizzle of steak. Aziraphale paused in his salt sprinkling, and gave him an interested look. 

“Isn’t this the moment when you pull out your pocket telephone and ask me what size kitchen, with what type of ventilation?”

Well. That was.

“No,” he said. 

“In your own time, dear.” Aziraphale grinned, all fucking know-it-all mischief.

Crowley sighed. Then, “Fine. What size _are_ we talking?”

He helped with the sail then left Aziraphale on deck, happily settling in with split attention between a Bloody Mary, the wheel, and his half-finished book. Crowley poked a finger at the cover to read the title.

“Cromwell gets his head chopped off, you know.”

Aziraphale shooed him off.

“Don’t go messing with the winds today if you’d like lunch at a reasonable hour,” the angel called down to him as Crowley clicked in.

“And you mind how you go,” Crowley scoffed in response. “You run aground, neither of us will get lunch.”

A chuckle sent him on his way.

The frenetic urge to race from the previous day had abated that morning to simple indulgence of his love for speed. The pathways out from the river were obligingly empty, only a few startled rabbits and a very stupid pheasant getting in the way of his tearing passage. 

The loop he’d chosen would see him farther north via a circuit along the coast before he joined back up with _Columba_. Not much in the way of serious hills to burn in this part of the country, but he found the delights of the gentle river valleys, the fens, the greening fields to be soothing in just the way he needed for a couple of hours.

Ten miles out he stumbled into a peloton about twenty strong. They rode for a while in easy harmony before he peeled off again to make his own way, boredom with their mechanical limitations overwhelming his patience for fellow enthusiasts.

On the wind, as he went, if he listened properly, he could hear Aziraphale’s name. It had always been that way, ever since he’d settled in this place, on this island. Not because he was a romantic, ridiculous idiot—welllllll, probably a bit—but because the angel had staked his claim here early and often and without conscious thought for the havoc his insistent ethereal Presence would cause.

Crowley had never minded, had even been secretly amused by it, though he’d never let on. He liked to listen. He liked Aziraphale. 

Last night’s listening had been necessary. A long, long time coming. But...trying. Hard. Unbearably painful in parts; unbearably gratifying in others. The lifting of the weight of it, carried for so long, was exhausting.

But _fuck,_ it been…good. It had been _good_.

And now? He felt ready for anything. More than ready. He _wanted_ everything.

What was it Device had said? Satan’s sake, it had been something absurd—that’s right, put yourself at your goal, she’d said. Visualise your future.

He skidded around a bend, flushed, giddy, thinking of the way Aziraphale had teased him over breakfast. Goading him to share his own secrets, which were apparently transparent as his own bleeding heart once the angel had stopped to take a proper look. 

Visualise his future? Yeah. He could do that.

Another few miles, and through into an interesting bit of woodland, until _aha_ , he spotted a treasure trove of wild garlic. Now that deserved a rest stop. Ventilation be damned.

He stopped to fish his secateurs out of his pocket dimension, and checked his phone while he was at it. New voicemail, Nav Beckwell’s voice only slightly betraying his nerves, and most interestingly, his hopes.

Spring—and all of its promises—had well and truly sprung.

The _Columba_ was already moored, picturesque in front of a massive oak, as he whizzed down the gravel to the marina. Aziraphale was at the bow, leaning over in animated discussion with people in a fishing runabout, the angle of his panama hat tipped to shade his face. 

The amount of arm waving suggested that the conversation involved fishing and the one that got away, so Crowley propped the bike against a bollard and ducked into a brick building that promised ‘Boating Supplies’. He emerged with two high-end fishing rods (“Mate, I didn’t even know we stocked these, but here you are.”) and a confiscated _Saintpaulia_ who had been left to crisp a windowsill. 

“Not your fault,” he muttered, setting it at his feet as he turned the tap on an outdoor shower and stepped under. Across the way, Aziraphale hoisted the bike up, gave the fishing rods the thumbs-up sign, and disappeared down below deck.

He was still below when Crowley returned. _Columba_ was already off her moorings, lines stowed. He felt around carefully. Sure enough, iridescent threads of angelic certainty kept her alongside. Grinning, he stashed the rods in a compartment that looked like it was designed for that exact purpose, then sat in the cockpit to have an encouraging word with the plant.

“Hello,” said Aziraphale’s head, popping up from the galley. “Take us out, would you? I passed a lovely little fen with butterflies—is that an african violet? Gosh, that shop does sell everything.”

Crowley made a non-committal noise and passed over the pot, changing the sad plastic into something that matched the saloon. “For a shelf.” He wiped off his hands and drummed the table. “Navigation chart, skipper?”

“Very tricky,” Aziraphale said, “south-west, then south. Stop when you see butterflies.” He flicked his fingers, and the boat gave a gentle sway as she was unleashed. A smile as he ducked back out of sight. “Lunch in half an hour.”

Crowley heaved himself to the wheel. He was thoroughly warm from his ride and the infectious cheer of the angel’s happy puttering. He’d barely uttered a grumble (“Press-ganged without a drink—oh”) when he saw his own Bloody Mary (extra tabasco, no celery) in the cup-holder. 

“Cheers, angel.”

South-west by south took the _Columba_ through tranquil broads. Crowley jammed on Aziraphale’s hat and snapped himself up stylish linen and obnoxious deck shoes. Fair enough warning signal, he reasoned, for the kayakers who yelled out in annoyance at his cross-wake. 

Lunch arrived up the stairs in the form of an elaborate cheese platter, and Crowley had just shoved a pickled onion in his mouth when he properly took in what Aziraphale was wearing.

“How—what the—what is _this_!” He waved a hand at the sky-blue…ensemble. All-in-one. Shorts (gah) and open-necked shirt (nghh) and a dinky little belt— _playsuit_ came to mind, but that wasn’t right either, and he should know, because the last time Crowley had seen a man or a man-shaped being wearing a towelling onesie was 1964, _Goldfinger,_ James Bond _._ He could see Aziraphale’s creasing smile start to fade and he blurted:

“You look. How do you look so amazing. You should look ridiculous.”

Aziraphale reached over to take his hat back, then paused, tilting his head. “So should you, in this. And yet here we are, outrageously attractive.”

Crowley burst out laughing, because what the fuck was the point in a comeback to that?

The butterflies were in strong competition with the damsels and early dragonflies, skimming and swooping through the marsh ferns. 

He picked up a handful of beans and dropped them one by one around the board. Ended on an empty pit and captured three of the angel’s beans with a victorious snatch.

“Hhmph.” Aziraphale frowned, and dithered with his hand over his own pits.

Crowley cracked one of the coffee beans over his back teeth, letting the bitter taste settle in his mouth.

“Stop eating the pieces.” Tik, tik, tik, all the way around the board. Aziraphale dropped ten more beans in his store. 

“Pfft, they’re spares. Besides, you’re stockpiling your way to a win—oh come _on_.”

“Best of three?” Smug angelic eyebrow-arching was the worst.

“Ugh, aren’t we at best of about nine hundred and fifteen now? Yes, fine, another round.”

Aziraphale took in a deep breath as he re-sowed the beans into their starting positions. When Crowley had suggested the game, he thought it might be useful to have something to look at, something to do with his hands. As pastoral as the morning had been, the conversation was far from over.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, scooping up his beans to begin. A decisive little wiggle. “Another round. One of the reasons I wanted us to talk out here—”

“Neutral ground, you mentioned it once or twice. Come on, put your pieces on the board.” He hadn’t meant his own double meaning, but there it was.

“Very well—yes. I thought we should,” tik-tik-tik, “negotiate ourselves another Arrangement.” Tik. “Your turn.”

 _Not yet it’s not_ , thought Crowley. He had centuries of practice, not reacting to the angel’s bombshells. In silence, he dropped beans around the board. Reached for another to crunch, and gestured for Aziraphale to continue. 

“Last year. We celebrated a millennia, Crowley! And as I’ve been out on this—this pilgrimage of mine, I have thought so much about you, you and me, and—my dear you must know—”

Crowley leaned back, all the better to take in the angel’s face, to catch the cadence of his words. There was a hitch, a faltering, and it reminded him of the hesitation in Naveen’s voice: shall I continue my centuries-long association with this demon?

But that was probably just the bitter coffee beans. Too bitter, for this afternoon. Aziraphale had made a fizzy, fruity punch: it was tart and sweet as it went down. 

“—the memories I put away, they weren’t just about our, well, fraternising, they were things I’d done for you, because of you. Experiences, people. Decisions. You’ve always opened my mind, so much. And I hope—well, I haven’t a rabbit to spit on the grill, but we could discuss the nature of a new Arrangement—”

That was enough. 

“My turn.” Crowley held up a hand and looked down at the board. He stirred a finger through his pieces, letting heat from his fingertips caramelise the beans. Today Aziraphale smelled like pears and altitude; entirely himself. 

_That_ was what Crowley wanted. Not an Arrangement with a capital A.

“On your terrace, last year. That angel. She said ‘you can’t leave heaven, you _are_ heaven’.” Do you remember what you said to her?”

Back then, with the thunderstorms of August banked over London, Crowley hadn’t been able to tell if the resonant timbre in Aziraphale’s voice was bravado, conviction, or the irritation of an angel having his lunch interrupted.

Aziraphale tilted his punch glass, frowning at the ice. “Sereniel. Yes. But I don’t—”

“Entirely myself, you said. Is that true?”

A blink. “I should say so. More so, now.”

“Then there’s your answer,” Crowley gestured between them. “This. Us. There’s no heaven and hell here. Not anymore.” 

“Oh, no,” Aziraphale brightened. “That _is_ what I mean! We’re on our own side. I suppose I am thinking of, well.” He happily dropped beans around the board, a little flourish with each one. “A treaty, of sorts.” 

_Lord Almighty_ , thought Crowley, and meant it. This was Her fault, creating a Principality who never knew when to let the metaphor drop. 

“No, angel. No sides. No treaties. No arrangements unless they have a very small a. No formal expectations—no, no, let me finish—no expectations of who we are or what we do.”

Aziraphale fell silent, watching him intently. A hot gust circled them both, tinder-dry, sparks in the aether around the angel’s fidgeting fingers. 

He leaned over the table, taking up Aziraphale’s hands. “We just go forward.”

The heat from Aziraphale’s skin was radiant, the air shifting in a constant motion. The angel’s gaze dropped to their hands, and he made a soft little noise, something that Crowley couldn’t parse in any human tongue, something full of assent. He laced their fingers together, watching his own skin flash, scales rippling in reaction to Aziraphale’s uncontained emotions.

Yesterday, Aziraphale had tried to describe how it felt; to take back, all-at-once, the sense-memories of their past. The thrilling, overwhelming jumble, before the pieces found a place to settle. Now, there was a rushing in Crowley’s ears as he willed his corporation to settle, to stop the onslaught of his own memories, Aziraphale’s hand over his own in a carriage, on top of a pile of scientific notebooks, against rumpled sheets. In all the universe there was nothing he wanted more, but he had to say his piece:

“Look, Arrangements are for—for associates. This...whatever we do, wherever we end up, I don’t want transactions. You have to be entirely yourself. No score-keeping. You have to still want to play this game with me even when I lose two hundred times in a row. You have to play like the bastard who finds the loopholes—” 

“I do love you, Crowley.”

“—and even when you’re bored—oh. Good. It’s nice to hear that.” He squeezed Aziraphale’s fingers, not sure what to do with words he’d never really needed but suddenly found himself wanting very much.

They sat for a time, Aziraphale curling bare feet around his own, Crowley rubbing the pad of his thumb over the outlines of the angel’s markings, enjoying little twitches and the scorching edge of Grace. 

Aziraphale looked up at him, a serenity on his face that he hadn’t seen for a very long time, and smiled. Crowley felt his own mouth curve in helpless response, and found himself swaying forward, but then the angel’s grin went mischievous. 

“No peace treaty, then. It’s a shame, I’ve been practising my manuscript illuminations.”

Crowley snorted. “I was thinking of kissing you, but between that nonsense and the beard I’ve changed my mind.”

He did it anyway; the beard was soft, and tickly in all the most promising ways, and the rush of sense memory was just as intense, but this time, _this time_ , Aziraphale kissed him back.

When he returned Nav’s call, he could hear the sound of the children in question giggling in the background.

“It’s Crowley.”

“Yeah, hi.” Those nerves again but more. Pleased to hear from him, Crowley realised. He rolled his eyes, but with fondness. Humans. There he was, a _demon_ , and the reaction was like he was an old friend getting in touch. That decided him, where he’d already been sure.

“You called about Sara. Agreeing her terms.”

“We’ve all talked about it, and we’d be fine with—”

“Counter-offer,” Crowley interrupted. “Something different for the kids this time round. A clean break with history, yeah?”

Across the deck, Aziraphale glanced over, eyes bright. Crowley thought again about Device and the confidence she’d grown into, the pleasure both he and the angel had taken in cultivating that free will. He smiled back across the deck, letting affection sound in his next words. 

“I was thinking...godfathers.”

The rhythmic slap of splashing woke Crowley again, but this time, there was no dream to chase, no cryptic magpies. Just the slightest roll and pitch of the boat as he lay still and Aziraphale swam in the river.

The sun was up, another still day, with a humid tinge already to the air as he came on deck. A snap for coffee. He idled around the boat, cradling the warmth of the cup, until a swimming figure came into view around a clump of willows. The water was dark in the early-morning shadows of the trees, and as Aziraphale neared the _Columba_ , the contours of his wings came into view. They streamed behind the angel, fiery opalescence at their edges blurring into a soft glow under the water.

Beautiful. Crowley stood still, willing Aziraphale not to stop. He watched, avid, as the angel swam with even, powerful strokes; the full arcing span of his ethereal form both material and transcendent in the water, hovering in an in-between space that made Crowley’s shoulder blades pull together in echoed craving. He watched, old hungers now gnawing fiercely, as Aziraphale turned to dive under, the lambent blur of his wings the only movement in the water for long moments before he surfaced at the stern.

“Oh!” Aziraphale’s smile was soft, and he had something of the newly-made about him. “Are you coming in?”

“No,” Crowley strode over to the platform, “you’re coming out. Now.” He reached down to clasp the angel’s hand, unable to bear him being further away a second longer, and pulled him, dripping, into an embrace.

Damp, but warm, and solid, strong: _here_.

“Good morning?” was muffled—half-question, half-laughing—into his shoulder, but Crowley ignored that, and plunged his hands into the blazing depths of Aziraphale’s wings. The sensation was incredible, racing from his fingertips to elbows in thrilling trails of heat and ice, and it must have felt just as good to Aziraphale, too, because he groaned and wrapped his arms tightly around Crowley, one hand at his nape and one hand—delightfully, unrepentantly—on his arse.

Crowley had just enough functioning brain to bark out a laugh, “Grabby hands back in full force, I see—”

“—Crowley, oh, this is—”

Whatever it was trailed off in a soft exhalation as he gently slid his hands through Aziraphale’s wings: filaments of supercharged matter became silky feathers as he stroked them through onto their material plane. The angel’s eyelashes fluttered against his skin, stuttering huffs in time with Crowley’s movements.

“‘S okay?”

Aziraphale made a yessish sort of moan, his hands shifting purposefully with a gratifying urgency—entirely welcome, but out of step with Crowley’s mood that morning.

“Shhh, sweetheart, shhh,” Crowley murmured. “There’s no hurry. We’re here.”

The shocky little noise Aziraphale made at the endearment, the way he swayed, uncontrolled, sent Crowley’s knees weak. But it allowed him the moment he needed to manhandle the angel back against him.

“Is this the new you, hmmm?” Crowley brushed at Aziraphale’s hair, a lock already drying to a curl, back behind his ear. “Letting it all hang out?”

“Mmm,” was the only response, Aziraphale’s gaze managing to be both glazed and entirely focused on Crowley’s mouth. 

He kissed him—how could he not—his hands again full of the feathery, fiery mass of Aziraphale’s wings. While they sparked and flickered intensely over his skin, the kiss was soft, languid, Aziraphale sighing and open under his mouth, tipping his head back, nudging Crowley into leaving a trail underneath his jaw. A gasp turning into a shuddery laugh when he licked across an earlobe, the softest skin imaginable. 

“Mmm, more,” came the murmur in his ear. He’d spent the last millennia—longer, let’s be honest—indulging the angel’s requests for all kinds of _more_. And he would, but:

“Come sit, angel. Let me at these.” He raked his fingers up from the depths of Aziraphale’s wings, brought a sweep of long, pearlescent feathers around between them, and blew across the vanes. “Like you used to.”

Settled, with Aziraphale stretched out and making contented rumbles in his chest, Crowley pulled warmth around them both and set to his task. Grooming it wasn’t, no matter the angel’s love of a nature documentary. But there was deep comfort to be had, weaving to and fro from that primordial plane where the swirl of creation still pulsed brightly, back to these tight, intricate bodies, where blood rushed and neutrons fired and all perception could narrow to the slightest touch.

Comfort, and a re-balancing, of sorts. In that other place, pure energy resonated; crashing waves of heat broke apart and came together again under Crowley’s ministrations. Roaring, ringing. Silence, measured out by the even, eternal beat of Aziraphale’s heart. He steadied the fulcrum points of brightness, worked out and in between them; he sank into the chaos, listening for patterns, coaxing filaments into alignment and oscillation. 

Where he saw mechanics, Crowley guessed that the angel would frame the touching of their Selves in aural terms: of strumming and reverberation, of chord and discord, of major and minor shifts. Their near-human bodies making metaphors as best they could to render the impossible describable. He kissed Aziraphale’s temple; around them, eddies of power wreathed and pulsed and welcomed him. He _knew_ this being, and still, he’d never know enough. 

Too radiant, after a time; he felt his own boundaries unwinding, and he slipped them back to the deck of the _Columba_ , Aziraphale almost asleep, the coruscating shine of the newly-tended feathers gently rising and falling. He snugged the angel back against him, leaning into the curve of his shoulder, and let Aziraphale mumble delightful, dopey nonsense at him. 

Crowley could see that his hands were gleaming where they rested against Aziraphale’s chest. He lifted one, grinning, watching as scales rushed to cover his skin, wending their way from wrist to elbow in a glittering sleeve. They refracted the light off the water, off Aziraphale’s glorious, iridescent wings, and for once, he left them be. 

Grey clouds rolled in, the air ionic with the promise of rain: soon enough, fat raindrops splished onto the deck. Crowley prodded a button on the console that looked like an anchor and hoped for the best. While the angel snoozed below, he’d taken them east and north, stopping to pilfer a few rare marsh orchids along the way.

The skies opened, and the momentary thought he’d given the fishing rod was set aside. He knew his own proficiency at putting something off too well; they’d been out here three days now, and it was his turn for confessions. It wouldn’t be a properly done thing otherwise, not with Aziraphale making his knowing little remarks about kitchen ventilation.

Down below, music was playing softly. In the cabin—his own, Crowley noticed—the angel was sprawled diagonally, taking up as much of the bed as a six-foot being possibly could. Crowley had a brief flash to some medieval tavern, hauling a half-drunk, completely-miracled-out Aziraphale upstairs to a straw mattress, nodding along encouragingly to slurred reassurances (“ ‘m perf’ly fine, jus—”) only to see him nod off mid-sentence. He’d sprawled then, too, the first time Crowley had seen him asleep.

He cracked the hatch open to let the sound of the rain in, snapped off the music, and inveigled himself alongside. Aziraphale was still radiating warmth: oh, the temptation to snooze, pressed against him. Crowley closed his eyes, breathed in, felt a hand weave through his hair. 

Breathed out.

“How did you manage,” Aziraphale started, low and hesitant, “or cope—knowing all we’d—” He shifted his hand, thumb coming to rest on the sigil, the snake squirming at the sudden heat. “It must have been so hard. So strange—” He sighed. “I am sorry.”

Crowley let that stand, content to let the sadness dissipate, drift off with the cooler air. “Sleep,” he said, only half joking. “Been telling you for centuries it’s not a waste of time.”

“Hmm.”

He pulled himself around, propped a forearm on Aziraphale’s chest. “Do you want to know?”

A blink, a frown. “Of course.”

“You never forgot. Not really. Sometimes you’d just look at me, or lean close, and it was there. You forgot in here,” he poked the angel’s forehead, “in that spongy bit, but not everywhere.”

Oh, the shape of that smile. “Especially not this.” He traced his fingertip down the curving line, stopped under Aziraphale’s mouth, the little edge of curl to his lip. “Just here. Goes wobbly.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You asked.” It was true, but Crowley was the only expert Aziraphale-observer in the room, and no-one liked their tells to be known. 

They lay for a while, listening to the rain come down faster. 

“Swapping bodies helped,” Crowley offered, because Aziraphale thought very loudly sometimes. “Even if yours had a bit too much of a new-car smell. There were these twinges, like, like notes from another tune. Felt familiar.”

“Old cloth. Folded under the darn,” Aziraphale said softly, and yes, that was exactly it. 

He twisted around to lie back against the pillows, talked to the ceiling. “Just hoped you’d get around to it, one day. Fine if you didn’t. Nice that you have.”

“Nice.” 

He could hear Aziraphale’s tease, let that go too. Took a breath:

“So the kitchen is about six by eight, but it’s sortof open with the living area, which is ten by eight, could be more, there’s a patio or you could swap the two—do you want feet or metres?”

Aziraphale burst out laughing, which was not the worst reaction, but did not do great things for Crowley’s nerves. He looked down to see the angel blink placidly at him. 

“Cubits, I think.”

“Yeah, okay, right—cubits, fuck’s sake. So, it’s double-height, which I know you like, I had to really work with the angle of the slope to get it to work.” He was rambling, but he’d started now, and he’d just see what stupid order the words would come out of his mouth. “Lots of space—so much, lots for books, lots for plants, wellll, more for plants because you’ve got the bookshop. And in the hillside, too. Cosy bits. South, it’s so sunny, and there’s trees. And the sea—”

“Oh do stop, you idiot demon.” 

“I—okay. Mmph.”

Aziraphale hauled around and kissed him. It was probably meant to be a decisive, shutting-you-up sort of smacker, but he was clearly still dopey and exhausted, and ended up brushing his lips and making shushing noises across Crowley’s face, flopping back against the pillows.

“This is what all that grass roof, cantilevered engineering, fossicking about in the vaults is all about, yes?”

“Mmmn?” He really didn’t trust himself to say anything more.

Aziraphale didn’t say anything else either, not for some time. Then, quietly, “I’ve remembered it all. Everything, now.”

 _Here I am_ , Crowley heard. 

“Come join me,” he said. “Live with—me. Together.”  
  


* * *

**  
Mesopotamia, a while back**

The rain had finally stopped. Better still, the angel was trying to build something, and Crawly was intrigued by how shit his efforts appeared to be turning out. Curiosity drew him down from the rocky promontory where he’d been scoping out the situation.

He sauntered over rubble-strewn beach, enjoying the double-take his sudden appearance earned him. The angel did a good line in flummoxed exasperation; it appeared to be his signature mood.

“Hullo, angel. Having fun?”

“Oh, hello, Craw—wait, how did you get here?” Aziraphale stared at him then away across the great expanse of water. “I thought you—”

“Drowned? Nahhh, not me. A little, maybe. Where’s your boat, then?”

“What?” A guilty look down at the pile of tree bits and tattered cloth. “Oh. Oh— _that_ boat. _The_ boat. It’s, um, it’s floating.”

“That’s good,” said Crawly, encouraging.

“Yes, it is rather. But, well, it’s been a while. A hundred and fifty days to be precise.”

“Always good to be precise,” he murmured.

“They were only supposed to go on for forty. I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a mix-up.”

“That’s a shame.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Aziraphale wrung his hands. “There was a pre-arranged signal: the rain would stop, and they’d send a bird to find land and show them the way, but I’ve seen no birds, so I’m afraid they’re still sailing around in circles!”

“Well, there’s your problem. Never trust a _bird_.”

“It was meant to be a dove.”

“A _dove_.” He waved an arm at the great, floody flood all around them. “There you go. Doves aren’t really deluge-resistant.”

Despondent. “I suppose.”

Crawly bent to examine his work. It was _vaguely_ boat-shaped. “So...craft-project? Why don’t you just miracle something for yourself?”

“I can’t. Then they’d know it didn’t go according to the plan.”

“Huh. Guess you’ve got a problem then.” Crawly gave him a considering once-over—the angel was a bit bedraggled but always a sight for weary eyes—then settled onto the ground. A few demonic miracles of his own sorted the shape of the hull.

Aziraphale crowded close, looking worried. “What are you—are you interfering? Crawly, don’t, honestly. Please? I know you’re meant to be thwarting but this a proper divine mission, Metatron took a personal interest, and after the last one I—”

“Oh, calm down, angel. Length times width, divide by—” He blinked, snapped, and there it was. Perfectly serviceable.

There was a long silence beside him. _Grateful_ silence, Crawly decided. 

“Will it float?”

...or not.

“Might,” he snipped, and stood to go. If the humans were going to show up again soon he’d better get started with his own preparations.

“Crawly, wait. Thank you. Really.”

He glanced over his shoulder. Aziraphale was watching him with an expression that...he couldn’t read. It was new, whatever it was. It was _interesting_. It felt...nice.

“Call her _Columba_ ,” he offered. Latin hadn’t been invented yet, but the joke still worked well enough to earn him a wry grin. “Guide them home.”

Aziraphale touched a hand to the bow of the vessel. His smile turned tentative around the edges, but it stayed. “Do you, would you like to come with? I mean, if you got into the boat when my back was turned, there would be little I could do about it once we were underway.”

 _Very_ interesting indeed. Oh, this was more like it; the last six months had been deadly boring.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “Whatever.”

“And then you’d have to use _your_ miracles to steer her, and keep her afloat, because I honestly do think it will all work out better with the two of us—”

“Angel,” Crawly interrupted. “You had me at hello.”

### Authors' Notes

 **Cachaça  
**A delicious Brazilian sugar cane alcohol, most often found in caipirinhas; your authors have now run out of the actual local Brazilian stuff and have had to resort to imported; they are sad.

 **_Columba_ ** **XVII  
** Seventeen because Aziraphale’s skippered seventeen vessels, nautical and aeronautical, by this name ( _Columba_ is latin for “dove”). So far, Crowley has sunk four of them. This particular vessel is a [Beneteau Oceanis 30.1](https://www.beneteau.com/en/oceanis/oceanis-301) and it is well worth familiarising yourself with this gorgeous wee vessel if you’re the sort of reader who likes to visualise. Neither of us are sailors, but the writing of this chapter and our fondness for the _Seventeen_ makes Blythe want to add a “yet” to that statement.

 **Commodore Fell  
** That’s another story, but Blythe, coming from a naval family, sure does have a predictable thing for Aziraphale the sailor. ****

**Cromwell (who gets his head chopped off)  
** Aziraphale is reading _The Mirror and the Light_ , the final book in [Hilary Mantel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Mantel)’s magnum opus of the life of Thomas Cromwell. This is what Blythely was also reading (listening to) for the first three months of 2020. If you pick up in our story an increasing attention to the cadence of a sentence and the utility of a repeating motif, it’s because she was listening very, very closely to Mantel’s sublime wordsmithing, and trying to learn a few things. (Top marks to the reader who spots the motif Blythely nicked wholesale.) 

**Flood, the Great  
** Overheard while writing this chapter:  
_Circe_ : How long was the flood? Forty days and forty nights?  
_Blythe_ : Wasn’t that Jesus in the desert or something?  
_Circe_ : (reading Wikipedia) well, it’s 40 days and nights in one verse of Genesis and 150 in another. That’s just sloppy copy-editing.

 **Magpies and their rhymes  
** The magpies, they’re back! Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale get the rhyme completely right, because there are [multiple versions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_for_Sorrow_\(nursery_rhyme\)), and as Terry Pratchett said in _Carpe Jugulum_ : “There are many rhymes about magpies, but none of them is very reliable because they are not the ones that the magpies know themselves.”

 **Mancala  
**A very ancient and widespread board game revolving around the strategic sowing of seeds to capture those of your opponent, known by many names and variations. We first learned it as [mancala](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancala) and can attest to its meditative and addictive nature.

 **Norfolk Broads  
** Lakes and waterways (broads) stemming from four main rivers in the eastern parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. The broads are the result of medieval peat extraction that subsequently flooded and wilded, and the region is now a [National Park](https://www.visitthebroads.co.uk/). Most of the broads are navigable by boats and cruisers; _Columba XVII_ would be at the fancier end of the kind of leisure craft one usually encounters, but only the best for our angel.

 **Scarborough Fair (and impossible tasks)  
** The choral version of "Scarborough Fair" that we chose for this chapter’s part of the playlist was a very early thematic touchpoint. Just like "An Acre of Land" (which Blythe talks about in detail [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/619924873038512128/planning-permission)) it is an old folk song about the impossible tasks we ask of our loved ones. The story grew in ways that in the end couldn’t accommodate this theme more overtly, but it has always been there: if you have an eye for detail you’ll know that Aziraphale bought Crowley’s Christmas present, a cambric shirt, in Scarborough; Crowley’s acre(ish) of land technically sits between the salt water (of the estuary river) and the sea strand; and the peppercorns will be back. Impossible tasks are also the theme of this [marvellous piece](https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/05/07/fuck-the-bread-the-bread-is-over/) on the perceived value of storytellers and academics in modern plague times; this author riffs on Scarborough Fair too, and if you haven’t read it, you should. 

**The sky blue...ensemble  
** Whether or not Aziraphale and his newly-awakened interest in fashion were deliberately playing to Crowley’s fixation with [60s James Bond](https://nypost.com/2019/06/05/are-you-man-enough-to-rock-a-james-bond-romper/), we’ll never know. But we do know that over the past year Aziraphale became a little more social media savvy and follows the awfully stylish David Evans aka @[greyfoxblog](https://www.instagram.com/greyfoxblog/) for insta inspo; and if you would like a sense of his summer angel-about-boat style, it’s something like [this](https://www.instagram.com/p/BZOk9wwHoLi/).

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 18

[Kadia Blues](https://open.spotify.com/track/0Uyc6XwEwDeOIjgUiPdSgb?si=0ZqzTDGaSty_lGVDyiKxoQ)  
Orchestra de al Paillote

[Holy City](https://open.spotify.com/track/0YPIETceecHVR0VWuRPRT3?si=PtgvaJHXQaCGLW8R6FPEyw)  
Joan as Police Woman

#### Perfume

[Entre Ciel et Mer](https://pierreguillaumeparis.com/en/perfume/entre-ciel-et-mer/), by Pierre Guillame  
Aziraphale: Pears at altitude, entirely himself  
  
****[Ma Nishtana](https://parfumprissana.com/collections/gods-monsters/products/ma-nishtana), by Parfum Prissana  
Crowley: Hot tarmac and a treasured silk dressing gown


	19. The Gate, June

On the morning after the day after Armageddon, Aziraphale had woken on the sunken sofa at Chesterfield Street. He’d lain there for a while, listening to the sound of humming and the rustle of leaves as Crowley puttered around the edges of the room. Stretching, he’d found that his corporation, new as it was, needed quite a bit more rest. Unsurprising, he’d supposed. It was still shop-new, so to speak, and had been borrowed by an entirely differently-shaped being the day before. 

Ah. Yes. 

It had all caught up with him, all at once. Pain, shock, horror, madness, and relief so deep it sickened instead of soothed.

He’d shivered and blinked up at the ceiling, at the early sunshine filtering through the glass roof. Not in Heaven, not in Hell, but on Earth. In Crowley’s space. With Crowley.

The humming appeared to be Sibelius. He’d forced himself to breathe in time with it, until his newborn heart had settled, until the adrenaline and bile and fear subsided. 

“You,” came Crowley’s crooning murmur on a pause from his music. The sound of a watering can being set down on the floor. “Don’t think that I haven’t noticed what you’re hiding behind that leaf. Blooming out of season, look at you, such a coquette you are. Then on a laughing sigh, “I know, one to talk. Alright, do your thing, gorgeous, and I’ll see to it the angel notices. But when you set seed and die, you’ve only yourself to blame.”

Aziraphale had smiled and closed his eyes, but found that the discomfort was strong, and his mastery of this new form was too slight for it to obey his order to sleep. He’d tossed back and forth, his mind racing and his skin itching with the sense-memory of _hellfire_ , and—

A cool palm across his bare ankle.

“Angel,” Crowley had murmured, and it was the same tone he’d used before, and when he said _angel_ Aziraphale could almost hear him saying _gorgeous_. Fingers curled tightly, holding Aziraphale in place and stilling his restless movement.

Crowley had settled beside him, to coax Aziraphale’s feet to press up against his thigh. “You’re safe here. You’re always safe with me.” His touch on his ankle had been firm and gentle.

He’d opened his eyes. Crowley’s face was down-turned, watching where he stroked little circles. Aziraphale had been choked by a strange, encompassing tension. He’d swallowed around it: “Crowley—but what am I meant to _do_?”

Another sigh. Crowley’s gaze had flickered sideways to him. Had lingered, earnest.

“Whatever it is, you’ll get there, don’t worry. You’ll work yourself in, and you’ll work it all out, soon enough. No hurry.”

And Aziraphale had found that he believed him, and that was enough to rest.

He woke to early sunshine filtered down through the open roof of _Columba_ ’s cabin. Beside him, Crowley slept on. Aziraphale stroked messy hair away from his brow, the remembrance of careful touches to his own skin still tingling through him.

“My darling,” he whispered. To say it out loud, in the close intimacy of the dawn, felt like turning on a new path. Like the moment, that other morning after, when Crowley’s fingers had encircled his ankle, made him safe. When all of possibility had strung out before him. Before his best intentions had set seed and died as he’d let himself fall into old, myopic patterns.

“Never again.” Fervent, another truth said aloud for the ritual of it. “I’m done with forgetting.”

Crowley stirred. “Stop promising so loudly,” he grumbled, though he buried his face into Aziraphale’s side with a sleep-messy press of lips against ribs.

He stroked his bright and beloved demon, and thought very loudly of love.

Sailing north for Cromer after all, because it turned out Crowley fancied a crab sandwich too. But more because Crowley was now able to look at him and freely admit— _no half-truths_ —that he wanted this time on _Columba_ to stretch on, soft and golden like the slowly lengthening days. And Aziraphale could say, out loud, yes, he wanted that too, and what’s more, to steer them on that course.

Peril, though, at the North Norfolk coast:

“Ooh, _kite-surfing_.”

“Hmm,” said Aziraphale.

Moored out from shore, they stripped each other bare, no witness to their hunger but the waves. The deck hard under Aziraphale’s bracing shoulders, his hips thrusting. Sea-salt mingling with salt-skin, and the bliss of Crowley’s triumph as glorious as the sky.

Crowley, with his talents for mimicry and mischief, had long-ago perfected the sonorous tones of the Shipping Forecast.

Aziraphale folded off his spectacles and looked up from the map, barely holding back an entertained chuckle for mock sternness.

“I have never,” he told him, “heard wind speed described quite like that before. Surely there’s a limit to the number of sexual sibilants you can—”

“—sssea sstate: sssmooth or ssslight. Gussstsss from sssouthwessst—”

“Hmm,” said Aziraphale.

Back on the Broads: proper use for a snaking tongue and little use for decorum on a busy waterway. 

Sailing past Southwold, Walberswick, and Dunwich with this lightness in his heart, a lightness that had been unimaginable only a month ago. Aziraphale could never have imagined it; he would not have known where to start.

He dropped Crowley off at Felixstowe.

Loading the cycle off the rail and kissing his cheek goodbye felt not so much a parting as a prelude.

“I’ll see you soon,” he told him. His watch—the compass side—had a new engraving of the most important coordinates Aziraphale had ever known. What had the gift-note said? _...see where it takes you. Let it sometimes take you to me._

An apprehensive blink up at him. Oh, that wouldn’t do at all. He leaned over _Columba_ ’s rail to knock gently against Crowley’s helmet.

“Oi!”

But it had the desired, distracting effect, and worry smoothed out as Aziraphale said, “Mind how you go, darling,” he said. “Don’t work too hard. Leave me something to screw into the wall.”

Crowley’s mouth quirked itself into some very amusing shapes before he huffed and drawled, “You’re something else, angel,” and zoomed himself off on the bicycle.

A pause, while he replenished supplies and got his land legs back, then the diversion up the Orwell. It was a pretty river once the countryside settled back in—wide blue-green with golden strands—but the rude size of the passing container ships sent _Columba_ rocking in their wake. A few miles upriver and it was definitely time for a drink.

He moored up and found a patio table at an inn whose disappointing menu contained little more than pale ale and beer batter. On the other hand: beer batter. 

“A slight detour,” he told Crowley around a mouthful of scampi. “A change of plan.”

Laughter through the pocket telephone, the heavy clank of something metal being set aside. “Hah. Knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“Well...‘I’ for Ipswich comes before ‘S’ for South Downs.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Another laugh. “Alright. Take your time. Gives me a chance to get more sorted before you arrive.”

“I’m only heading up to Ipswich for a night.” Aziraphale grumbled. “Then sailing right back down around the coast.”

“Uh-huh.”

Aziraphale glanced down at the notebook open on the picnic table. He’d pencilled in his exciting Saturday appointment for a new tattoo, and he’d noted a few promising places where he might find a gift for an infamously-particular demon.

“A night or two,” he amended.

“Love you, angel.”

“Oh.” It was still surprising, still delightful. It lit him ablaze. “Yes. Yes, please.”

The “I” of Ipswich was all that he’d hoped for himself. A good instinct, he thought, as he opened the cabin hatch and let the night air in. The movement flexed his bicep, which set him off again, beaming down at his own choices, his own body. Other choices marking his body: the fading scratches on his thighs, the loosened eagerness of his reawakened joints, the exaltation of preened wings.

The stars were visible. Beautiful. He took himself up on deck for a better look. They made him thoughtful. From the time he’d remembered Chatsworth, the memory of Her voice, speaking to him, he’d wanted to speak back. To talk to Her—explicitly to Her—but he never knew what to say. Looking at the stars, he had a sense at least of where he wanted to start.

“You’re an idiot,” he said to Her.

He went back down to the galley and sat at the comms. He flicked the radio on.

“South Downs, this is _Columba XVII_. Ready to show you how it’s done. Request working Channel 6, over.”

A waiting pause, a rumbling laugh, then, “... _Columba XVII_ , this is South Downs. Is it bedtime already? Channel 6, out.”

Aziraphale settled in, the sound of Crowley’s easy breathing in his ear. He lowered his tone; a gentle murmur just for one listener. “East, veering south for a time, 4 to 6, increasing 5 to 7 later. Occasional rain. Good—”

White chalk faces turned to the sea, the Seven Sisters welcomed him. _Columba_ was fractious against the surf, impatient to reach her destination. Aziraphale found himself fully engaged with the sail, moving around the ship, winding ropes. With the breeze in his hair and through his head, scattering any thoughts, he found there could be no traction for worry or doubt, no space for revelation. Just cheerful anticipation, and the chasing of clouds, and an effervescent happiness that left him more breathless than the gusts.

The Bentley was waiting at Newhaven.

“Hello, my dear. You’re always a fine sight to see.”

He slipped behind the wheel once again, flexed his fingers against the now-familiar leather. He had the distinct, pleasurable sense of _deja vu_. But it wasn’t, was it? That was the brilliance of it all. 

Since October, he’d been repeating this passage, playing through to the _da capo_ and back again with only small variations to advance the theme. But now he could move out and through, into a _coda_ whose notes he could feel resonating through every fibre and feather and fundament.

“Let’s go find him,” he urged her, and they took the roads at a speed he didn’t even notice. 

Aziraphale cranked open the window and leaned out, letting the wind and grit sting his skin and his Senses extend. The edges of his island, close and tingling at their boundaries; a light rain on the green earth, the barley beginning a glorious response in its fields; the sparks and rumbles of all the living. The well-cultivated boundaries of field and land and forest; streams and chalk; brick and paving. With one hand at the wheel, he let his edges blur, letting his Grace course out behind the car, letting it seep across the landscape. Searching, enveloping, until he came to an estuary and could go no further. His Eyes opened. Like the place in his chest, where he had folded his cloth and tucked his heart away; a part of the land folded and furrowed, hiding from his Sight.

“I’m here,” he told the wind, and there was nothing but rushing in his ears, with the road streaming beneath, until suddenly, with a gasp of aether, the landscape _opened_ to him. Grace rushed through now-tattered edges of ancient confines, old barriers slipping away in the onslaught until Aziraphale groaned with repletion as he was welcomed in.

On the material plane, a horn blared, and he barely jerked the wheel in time to avoid the collision.

“Yes, yes,” he muttered, disconcerted, his senses still jangling with pleasure and strewn about the countryside like so much discarded clothing.

Surely an automobile needn’t sound _so_ amused, even this one.  
  


* * *

  
The Bentley turned off the road under a messy clump of oaks and yews. Timbers and metal shifted underneath as they crossed a drainage ditch, and the sense of ancient barriers shifted too, very old land now Seen. Ahead, a green lane meandered around a corner and sunk into the slope, the track surface barely visible under summer growth. They glided to a stop under a tree.

The door sprung open, and Aziraphale stepped out into a softly dripping holloway. The ground underneath was stony and uneven—an old drovers road or bridleway, perhaps? Banked earth on either side, a carpet of springy moss roped through with exposed roots, and the trees reached high above, curving to almost meet in the middle. 

Water was the only sound: pattering into leaves overhead, running down trunks to pool into the clay. Far, far in the distance, breaking waves. Close underfoot, a runnel of stones steadily burbling back out to the ditch. He followed the rivulet against the flow, along the path, smiling as the Bentley flashed her headlights behind him.

A gap in the bank. On one side, the clay was held tight by giant, twisty roots. On the other, the corner of a stone wall, a modern regularity to the stacking the only clue to recent interference. The rill snaked in here, along the base of the stones.

No door, just the most familiar contours of protection, of welcome.

Aziraphale stepped through and into a passageway that led deep into the hill. Dark to human eyes, but illuminated by a shaft of light further back; right now, to his senses, it was a space filled with anticipation. He walked slowly, patting the stones on one side. On the other, walls of earth were packed smooth, humming alive under his hands.

His pocket telephone buzzed.

_have fun exploring_

_You’re not going to show me around?_

_don’t be stupid_

_i’m not looking at your face it’ll have reactions and stuff_

_am at the top come find me when done_

There wasn’t much he could say in a text message to settle an anxious architectural ego, so he just sent an _xx_ and put the phone back in his pocket. For the best—he was humming himself, to see Crowley again, but he found he wanted to explore at his own pace too. To see this treasured, secret place that Crowley had hidden away, and now wanted to share.

Two doorways were cut into the passageway. One opened into a space stacked with wood and metal, tiles and glass. Not one but five bicycles were hung precisely on the wall, carefully kept away from the building detritus. 

He stepped back into the passageway, wondering just how the Bentley felt about those bicycles. At his feet, the rill edged along the passageway, contained in a channel of rough stone blocks that turned into the other door. In this room, slate slabs spread over a generous space that could only be the successor of Crowley’s Mayfair wet room. The far wall was completely panelled in black-framed glass. Outside, he could make out the overhang of another structure; underneath that, a riot of lush fernery barely restrained from breaking through the glass. 

He inhaled, felt the backs of his knees twitch, his fingertips tingle. The earth and the green, the water, everything constantly in motion. Crowley had imbued this space with something fundamental of himself, and it was only the mundanity of the half-finished tiling and a bucket of cement that kept Aziraphale from glazing over with imaginings.

Water spilled down one wall to fill the shallow pool, a sheet of it from high-up in the corner. Up close, the dark tiling was iridescent, sparkling under the play of water. The ceramics were the very exactness of Crowley’s own form, deepest black prismed into colour. 

He held his fingers in the falling water, closed his eyes, felt for the source, higher and deeper back in the earth. A seam of water through the chalk and loam. It stretched up above, forged into branches and channels by Crowley’s brilliant, deft mind.

_This wet room is beautiful._

_last minute addition. do you want an actual bathtub_

_can change it_

_don’t go up the ladder btw_

Did he want a bathtub? 

Aziraphale had bought and taken, been given and gifted many things in his life. But asked what he wanted? He stood in the passageway, looking at the screen of his phone in the gentle darkness, at the ordinariness of Crowley’s words. Asking him how he liked, how he wanted, to live.

Standing there, he finally knew what he wanted to say to Her.

“Thank you.”

At the end of the passageway light spilled down from two angles. To his right, a rough-cut hole in the earth looked up on grey sky, a ladder propped up and through. He gave the ladder a wiggle, and great clumps of chalky dirt crumbled out of the turf. Work in progress, indeed. 

To his left, a curving staircase. The warmth of the packed earth graded into fine, shiny concrete, the glow of light from above shifting silver to gold. The first turn gave him another encounter with water, here channelled in a copper cutting from beneath a stair, neatly slicing across the landing to fall to the tiles in the room below.

The light poured down ahead. He took the stairs two at a time, eager to see more. An expansive, bright space fell out in front of him, double-height above, windows on three sides. Green, rolling green to the east and west, grey and blue to the south. The stairs continued up behind him; they could wait, but he tipped his head back to see how high the lightwell rose, and gasped to see the roof open to the sky above.

_A proper atrium! And this tremendous piece of oak—extraordinary._

After a long time watching the little dots appear and disappear, all he got from Crowley was a thumbs up.

_Shall I save my commentary for later?_

_ugh yes x_

The concrete of the floor and walls gleamed, so finely cast it took on a soft porcelain lustre. Aziraphale took off his shoes and socks to find the floor smooth and warm underfoot. Of course it was, he thought, flashing back to Crowley flopping himself down on the bookshop’s sun-baked terrace, long limbs something close to liquid and sighing with pleasure. 

He padded through to the south aspect, taking in every detail he saw. The space was unfinished, but not altogether empty: the living space sunken down in a semicircle around a fireplace that bisected the room. Fireplace was as technical as he got, but no doubt Crowley had a fancy architectural name for the heft of the stone mantel, high enough to see through to the other side. A pile of wood sat expectantly in the bowl of a shallow hearth. 

No soft furnishings yet, but all manner of fabric swatches strewn where there would be sofa cushions (a sticky note: _for negotiation!_ ), and near the windows, the kind of circular papasan chair that Aziraphale thought had gone out of fashion fifty years ago and couldn’t wait to tease Crowley about. One expanse of wall was covered with a tapestry—Persian or Tocharian, he wasn’t sure, but definitely recognisable as a genre that Crowley spent decades haggling over in Central Asia, and also definitely now causing some museum curator heart trouble by not being safe in storage. Half a dozen contemporary canvases were propped against the tapestry, with the contrast they made against faded fifth-century needlework elevating both the ancient and the modern in their opposition. 

There was another note on the last canvas: _still like the use of colour?_

(Crowley’s breath at his ear, the palpable sense of his satisfaction at Aziraphale’s interest, the titillation of the long-held, illicit knowledge that Crowley was cataloguing his likes and dislikes so he could _please_ him. Did he still like the use of colour in this lovely gift? Of course he did.)

The view was extraordinary. No doubt a picture postcard on a sunny day, but today—with the last of the mist wreathing about the trees below, the metal sky scraped gold, the scudding clouds—there would always be something new to see. The plate glass stretched from floor to ceiling, no doubt pushed to demonic limits of structural engineering. Just below, he could see down into the fernery, the dropping slope, the ancient trees. Birds jittering the leaves to spray rain and dew into the air. The estuary braided a low tide down to the sea strand. 

Aziraphale leaned his forehead on the glass, and soaked it in for long moments. Beauty, inside and outside—and if the smudged footprints on the window and the empty wine glass by the chair was anything to go by, it was a favourite spot already. Contentment washed through him, not just for himself, but because here was the evidence that Crowley had made something with his own happiness in mind, too.

More to see. Space for a kitchen on the other side of the fireplace, because a high-end wine fridge and his cornucopia mosaic—carefully set into the floor—could only mean one thing. Half a dozen sketches sat atop catalogues and design books, but otherwise his demon had left well enough alone.

“Very wise,” he tapped the pile, anticipating the chilling wine and planning the optimum counter height for rolling out pastry and gazing over the downs. 

More sticky notes as he circled around: undecided on walls ( _here for cookbooks?_ ), open-minded on pieces of art ( _can’t decide, you choose_ ), and didactic on a modern-looking set of dining chairs ( _not up for debate_ ). He supposed Crowley would brook no compromise on the atrium space either, but he had no quibble to make there. A tiled step surrounded a bijou tropical oasis, banana plants already reaching their glossy leaves far up overhead, a glorious parlour palm arcing her fronds gracefully. All were wet and vital from the rain, softly dripping onto the ground and floor.

There was a hook driven deep into the massive oak pillar, the terrace hammock slung up. He imagined Crowley lazing there, late at night with the green smell and soft breeze, listening to Aziraphale out on the _Columba_. He imagined them lazing there together, Crowley’s eyes drifting shut while Aziraphale read to him, catching them up on two century’s worth of speculations on the universe. 

He’d never been so content to have his possessions commandeered. 

Another rill, water flowing out from deeper, interior spaces: one branch spilled down the tiled step, the other skirted the walls to lead out onto a patio. He followed the trail outside, curious now to see how the house sat in the landscape. Outside, square flagstones of all sizes were jigsawed together in pleasingly random geometry, ivory limestone surely sourced from the cliffs he had sailed past yesterday. The water ran up and around the roots of a young cedar in the centre of the patio.

Drawn to the tree, he put his hand on its trunk, and—yes. So familiar. A dear friend’s house in Lebanon, long ago. Snatches of song, of the smell of grilled lamb and the comfort of a roaring fire on nights that chilled even an angel. 

How? 

He closed his eyes, overcome for a moment by what it meant that Crowley had noticed—had saved—had _hoped_ , all this time.

A buzz by his ear. He looked to watch a fat red-tailed bumblebee go adventuring, zooming about the small weeds at the base of the tree, before setting its sights on more lavish feasts. The patio was bordered on one side by brilliant lavender, a gap in the dense purple mass revealing steps down. He followed the bee as it bumbled, noting some comfy outdoor seating and another pile of building materials.

The patio dropped away down a gentle terraced slope: three levels that he could see, planting in chaotic progress and the vision still mostly in the mind of the gardener. On his pivot around, the profile of the house was unobtrusive. Only the living space on its cunning cantilever protruded out, a floating marvel of glass and weathered steel. Somehow the rest—which had felt so expansive inside—was barely discernible, the slant of the hill itself meeting the top of the atrium. 

Above, long grasses swayed hypnotically, riven with wildflowers that sparkled as the sun started to burn the cloud away. Here and there trees congregated or held court proudly solo, and the rill glinted and weaved to the top of the ridge. From this distance, he could just make Crowley underneath some trees, and was he—yes, he was pushing a wheelbarrow. 

Aziraphale held up his hand to wave, but Crowley had moved out of sight. He followed instead the bees, who had lifted up from the lavender and scattered down the terraces. His fat friend’s fiery bottom was easy to spot as she soared off, through a rustic-looking woven archway.

He blinked. The bee had disappeared. He tracked another as it flew through the arch: it too was gone. Others flew past but not through, and those ones continued their path in the landscape beyond the archway.

Some demonic ingenuity here! He trotted down the rough steps to the arch. Straight on, there was nothing remarkable but the glorious rolling vista of the Downs, but Seen on an angle—were those _plum trees_?

It was hard to say what was more pleasurable: stepping through an enclosure of Crowley’s own earth magic, or the sight of dozens of fruit trees, the apples already June-dropping their excess bounty onto the orchard floor. He held up a hand to the air…oh, how cunning. A clear seventy miles from the patio with its cedar tree now, and unlike Crowley’s land, this felt familiar to him. Well-trodden, on the London road to Portsmouth. He had no doubt that were he to look closely at his Map, he’d have been through this country many times down the ages. But what had drawn Crowley to _this_ place, altogether more pastoral and commonplace in its prettiness? 

The orchard was bordered by a stone wall, beyond that, the roof of a thatched cottage. He took a circuit around the trees, pausing to sample the cherries, thinking fondly of his own peaches and apricots. How they would thrive with a larger wall to espalier against! Early raspberries and gooseberries were an overgrown pink and green riot on rickety frames. He pocketed a few, and ducked through a door in the wall. This side, an unkempt lawn was threatened by similarly overgrown borders: probably once someone’s pride and joy and afternoon croquet ground, from the carefully levelled lushness of the grass underfoot. Near the cottage, a sea of wildflowers, the ends of wisteria now competing with clematis and jasmine for climbing space along the wall, and a profusion of roses. Perhaps this was the appeal—for it was truly beautiful, even while neglected.

“Ah, hello again!” His red-tailed friend had come sniffing about, landing on his shirt to investigate the yellow sailboats on the print. She hitched a ride while he peered in the windows, poked his nose into a mudroom and into a mostly serviceable if old-fashioned kitchen. Decent-enough cooker. Standard country cottage, but he wasn’t inclined to look around without knowing what Crowley had in mind here—aha, there was the note: 

> _it’s a shed. for potting and for book-binding/carpentry/whatev your mate from Stafford was on about_

He laughed, mostly at Crowley’s ridiculousness, but also at the gift of new possibilities.

Back outside, the bee jaunted off to a crevice near the base of the wall, apparently welcomed in by her siblings despite leaving half her pollen on Aziraphale’s shirt. He headed back to the archway, full of questions: there’d been no mention of this orchard annex and its “shed”. For a moment, Aziraphale recalled the hesitation in Crowley’s voice as he’d described the house to him, sketching outlines of light in the air as they lay close and tangled in the cabin of the _Columba_.

(“It’s, um, modern. I should warn you. Not your brick-built Georgian. Not that there’s anything wrong with a townhouse, obviously—”

“It’s actually beginning to sound quite primeval,” Aziraphale had teased. “Underground chambers and a fire in the middle of the room.”)

There was a story behind the cottage, that much was clear. Oh, how splendid to have so many questions, and to know that if he asked them, Crowley would answer.

He could ask, now.

Or would, if Crowley made his whereabouts known. The wheelbarrow was still up by the trees, no sign of Crowley—but he should complete his tour, see it all and have his thoughts in some order. Into the welcoming interior, with a pause to retrace steps and contemplate the kitchen space, munching on one of the gooseberries. The lemony-grape flesh was still a few weeks away from its best, but sweet enough for a tart with the last of the elderflowers. 

Fruit for thought, but what had Crowley hidden underground? Behind the dining space and the atrium, a single room ran the full width. Sliding doors were pulled to the center, and Aziraphale could see that parts could be closed off or opened up to the rest of the house. He looked around for his clue, and there it was, a stack of wine crates and two of the exact high-tech storage units he had in the bookshop’s vaults. The sticky note read: _auxiliary booze etc, not replacement!_ Stuck to one unit, a geological map of the Downs and the Weald, little wine glasses drawn where Aziraphale knew there were vineyards, and a table in Crowley’s handwriting comparing their soil composition to his own.

Well. It wasn’t like Mayfair was conducive to grape growing, and that was a new hobby Aziraphale would encourage enthusiastically.

The rest of the space was mostly empty. Down the other end, near the patio, light streamed in a double height window, and the stairs continued in two grand angles to a second storey, the two floors separated only by glass. The stairs ascending through light from a purposeful space reminded Aziraphale of the Birmingham library, but also of the bookshop. All thoughtfully intended on the architect’s part, there could be no doubt: cosy nooks for reading, the rainy-day flat light of the workroom, and a space that Aziraphale hoped would host a draughting table. An invitingly empty door frame propped against a wall and the note that made him laugh aloud in delight. 

> _YOUR_ _JOB ANGEL never hear the end of it if I got it wrong on the Soho end_

Taking the stairs gave him different angles out over the house and the outdoors, and at the top, a space reaching deep into the hillside. He had no idea how Crowley had built this house without any load-bearing inner walls; three-dimensional mathematics and that giant oak pillar were probably the answer. This curving space was the least clear of all, though in its unfinished form and absence of any furniture it asked some intimate questions for later. 

Serenity was the overriding impression. A long, narrow cut in the ceiling curved in line with the back wall, washing diffuse light from above down the pencil-grey plaster. Another shaft of light, a larger oval in one corner, let in not just the sky but the shadows of clouds and the waving edge of foliage as well. The scene transformed in a play of changes across the walls and floor, and he marvelled at whatever Crowley had done to tempt the sun below the earth, into this secret corner. At night, would the moon be lured just as prettily? He couldn’t wait to see.

There was one more beam of light, narrow overhead and landing near his feet on the complicated parquet of the floor. The planks were patterned in a symmetrical herringbone, but here and there, an oddly placed square went against the flow.

Aziraphale let out a soft noise of realisation as the shaft of light moved onto a square. His watch—his exquisite, remarkable watch—told three minutes to the hour. He watched, and for a moment, he flashed back to the sight of those long-ago waterlilies, preserved in their bubbles of time. Crowley was the most extraordinary of beings. He could bend time in service of destruction if he wished, but he used his skills simply to flirt with an angel, and made himself a sundial by moving twenty tonnes of earth. 

If there was more more to see, it could wait. Aziraphale didn’t think his heart—mortal or eternal—could cope with more.

There were trees on the ridge beyond the house, and he supposed, a _view_. Aziraphale followed the rill upwards, letting it guide his path. Not as domesticated as it had been through the house and its surrounds, but feral there as it wound its way down through the rocks. Chalky white dust from where he kicked up his feet; the soil was thinner over the slope and the way hadn’t been eased yet with a proper path or steps. He’d think about it. Perhaps it could be his contribution to the landscape.

It was an interesting train of thought, this question of landscape. Halfway up he spun back to look down over the grass roof, the patio, a low stone wall and the yews, the distant sea. There was something….yes. That was it, wasn’t it? He thought back to the drive here, to the splay of his senses across the hills. The beauty of the South Downs was in its carefully-rounded landscapes, the way the light played on a monoculture of grass and grain, their palette of greens a perfect counterpoint to the white of the chalk beneath. Thousands of years of humanity, bending this place to its will. An eminently habitable wildness, with a vigour that was _comfortable_. 

This place, Crowley’s land, wasn’t like that. His from the Roman invasion, the demon had said, and thus protected from millennia of manipulation by human hands. There was a variation here, edges, that spoke of nature being given its own free will. 

Or—conversely—was it instead the careful preservation of a blank canvas, saved for this moment of their own artistic creation?

(The longevity and scope of this secret fascinated and stung him in equal measure.) 

He knelt to filter the thin soil through his fingertips, then stood with determination. There was more to learn.

When he crested the ridge, Aziraphale immediately recognised the view. The South Downs Way crossed the landscape like a seam of silver. This—this was the place that Crowley had brought him, just over two hundred years ago. He now remembered it: germinating seed pods scattered to the wind. And—yes, they’d been to Brighton, a frolic by the seaside, Crowley had named it, with that shyly-flushed naughtiness that had so marked those decades. They’d come here in a carriage, though Crowley had never said why he’d been so keen. There’d been a picnic, and a stroll, and the planting of trees.

_These_ trees.

They were beeches, and beautiful ones. Unlike the perfect lines elsewhere along the paths, these had been allowed to settle and spread as they wished. He remembered his hands full of seeds; some had clearly not survived. A storm-shattered stump was striking in its shapes and shadows. Nearby he found the place where the lightning had struck a second time—the ground split into rock and the source of the rill bubbling up from the burst aquifer below.

The water tasted of minerals and he licked it thoughtfully from his fingertips as he moved underneath the canopy of the trees. He found his gaze drawn up, up, into the stretches of purple-verdigris leaves. There were birds hopping amongst the branches—magpies, he thought, seeing a flash of white—but they didn’t show themselves long enough to be sure. When he circled behind the tree for a better look, he saw Crowley.

There was a low seat made from a felled trunk. Crowley slouched in an open shirt nearly transparent from the heat of his labours, drinking from a flask. His long legs were bared in shorts and stretched out so far it seemed to Aziraphale that his feet were setting off on their own adventures. Every inch of him shouted tension, but a good tension, an anticipation. 

His heart was pounding as he stepped forward. Crowley’s gaze snapped to his, then darted across his face, searching.

He let him see it all, everything.

Then he closed his eyes, and pressed his hand against the rough bark of the beech’s trunk. He felt for it, and yes there it was, the blessing he’d given the seed as he’d tossed it to the wind. Grown into the rings of wood; flowing through the venation of the leaves. Down, down beneath the soil and spreading, his blessing, through the fungi that shared those hidden spaces. 

Good, he thought fiercely. He was already here, tangled into the roots of this place. He opened his eyes again and Crowley was standing there, right there, right where Aziraphale needed him to be.

“Please,” he said. “Let me.” He reached out to draw him in, pulling him close in the tightest of embraces, then pushed him back against the tree. 

He crowded closer, touching their foreheads together, his hands tightening against Crowley’s wrists to hold him in place. Pulling back enough to see him, he started, “You’re so,” and gasped, pressing his shaky mouth to Crowley’s mouth in punctuation. “Oh lord, I hardly know where to start!”

That startled a laugh out of the demon, and Aziraphale _loved_ him.

He tried again, and oh, how sacred it was that it was his spreading smile that was making the words so hard to say, no longer any internal impediment. “I want this. You. _Us_.”

Crowley moaned. And there it was, the fire to his blood, and all in that moment he couldn’t stop pressing close, couldn’t stop babbling this truth. 

“You’re so brilliant. You made something for _us_ —it’s so, so beautiful—like you, so much like you, but I can feel it’s like me, too. And now I want to see everything your lovely, clever imagination comes up with for these wonderful gardens, and to be part of that. I love it. I love _you_. All I really want is an eight-burner hob and a new set of knives—I’ve got a better door to the bookshop in the vaults. Oh, and I want the sofa to be blue, but I’ll compromise on yellow.”

“ _Aziraphale_.”

“My dearest, my dear.” 

He kissed him, lightly, then deeper, stroking into his mouth as their bodies strained together, settled against each other. He loosened his grip on Crowley’s wrists, so he could cradle his face. He told him, “I want to be here with you in every season, just to see what you have planned. You make me want to come up with plans, too.”

Another kiss. Deeper still, the sense of falling dizzily into him, the swooping thrill of surging blood under skin.

“I am so—”

“Angel,” Crowley rasped, his work-grubby hands petting across Aziraphale’s chest. “Am I to gather you like our—” He hesitated, his fingers fluttering for the barest instant.

Aziraphale _loved_ him. He kissed the sharp tip of his nose. “Our home? It’s not bad, I suppose.”

No need to ask, if he could have this. Not when they could both have what they wanted. Together. 

“Oh!” He pulled back again. “I saw where you marked out for the barbecue, by the way. _Terrible_ positioning, you never do get the wind right, the prevailing’s all wrong for—”

It was Crowley’s turn to press forward, manipulating them round until it was Aziraphale was against the trunk. Their breath came heavy, the tidal pressure of Crowley’s desire a welcomed weight. 

“Thisss,” Crowley murmured into his ear, “will be the bessst thing we’ve ever done.”

“It will be,” he promised, just as quiet, just as overwhelmed. “It already is.”  
  


* * *

  
Aziraphale left Crowley asleep in the hammock when he embarked on his early-morning mission. When he came back, a bag full of warm pastries in one hand and coffee in the other, Crowley was still there. Awake now, one leg flung out to catch a ray of dawn sunlight, and leafing through some very ancient editions of the _Burlington Magazine_. He eyed Aziraphale suspiciously. 

“I know for a fact the nearest bakery is, first and foremost, a bit rubbish, and second, not open before ten.”

“Oh. Do you not want this coffee, then?” Aziraphale let the smell do its trick, the twitch of interest that flickered the demon’s tongue.

“Give it here. What’d you do then, drive to Brighton? Or wish very hard for The Olde Village Teashop to have an artisanal turn overnight?”

Crowley wasn’t necessarily wrong, but it hadn’t been a truly conscious impulse on his part. And besides:

“I’m sure it will be an excellent business decision,” Aziraphale breezed past him to unload the bag of baked goods onto a pile of boxes. “They had _very_ exciting quince and manchego twists. I picked you up a little lemon tart thingy.”

Crowley dropped the magazine on the floor and laughed. “ _Manchego_! Bloody hell, angel, trust you to go imposing your celestial will on the neighbourhood from day one. I was hoping to fly under the radar a bit.” He took a bite of the proffered tart. “The house is low-lying for a reason—ngk, whatever, this is well tasty.”

“Mmmmpph,” With a mouth full of flaky pastry Aziraphale wasn’t much interested in debating the extent of his Presence either. He was, however, very interested in the beautiful smile on Crowley’s face, and thought he ought to kiss it, breakfast and all.

He was still finding pastry crumbs in his shirt creases a few hours later. He was rather rumpled, and that hammock was not entirely convinced it could be made to accommodate two beings no matter their combined insistence it could. 

Crowley’s searching fingers got everywhere, because somehow there were crumbs in Aziraphale’s pockets too. Little flakes, when he curled his palm around the oval of the ocarina—of all things—he’d found in a box of knick-knacks. He remembered Crowley giving him the instrument long ago, regaling him with tales of trading bazaars, the most exquisite jade, the human ingenuity of cultivating moths to spin the finest silk. Exciting new traditions of art, like the dragon etched into the body of the ocarina. Different tones, too, in the music that the little flute produced.

The day before, he’d told Crowley how much he wanted this place. This home. And so they’d gone back through the house and the garden, every inch together. Crowley revealed aspects Aziraphale had not yet noticed, always giving an option for “or not, if you want something different, it’s all a work in progress.” (Apart from the dining chairs, which were indeed non-negotiable, and that naff statue of wrestling angels which Aziraphale was just going to view as Crowley’s pet rock in order to preserve the peace.)

Last evening, his head had been whirling with counter-proposals and new suggestions. He’d stood on the patio, opening a bottle of local Bacchus while Crowley fussed with chairs. The proper location for the barbeque was definitely the west wall, and yet the planters looked so—

“Oi, garçon! Get over here!” 

He’d shaken his head, and parked the thoughts on a chalkboard inside, alongside his other suggestions: the draughting table for Crowley, a kiln for the “shed”, correct locations for hi-fi speakers and book shelving, and a proper bench underneath the snogging beeches. As they’d lifted a glass to each other and to the sunset, he’d been grateful, not just for the expanse of space inside and out, but for the opportunity to reconsider the well-worn contours of his own ideas of home. To make something new together.

Then this morning he’d found the ocarina, and another possibility had presented itself. 

He stood in the quiet upstairs room under the earth, with its calm shafts of light, listening to the acoustics as he hummed, as he blew warm, rounded sounds from the clay. Last night Crowley had pontificated on his non-committal approach to this space, about the human concept of the bedroom. He’d ranged across historical and cultural approaches to sleep and sex and personal space in domestic interiors in a way that would have made an architectural historian weep to be a fly on the wall. Aziraphale’s patience for that particular roundaboutness had run out fairly quickly. 

“My dear. This is very fascinating, and you know I love the sunken arrangement downstairs, but I’m very taken by the thought of you sprawled out naked for me on a giant bed in here, so shall we just start there and talk about bed-linens instead?” 

Crowley had made a strangled noise and started up his fetching blush, impossible to resist, so the bed-linens were still to be settled. 

Aziraphale had seen the flute and been overcome himself, remembering the joy he’d felt playing music again at Pete’s wedding. About the sense of creating something, of practising skills with his hands—book-binding and baking and music all—and how his time walking in Southwold had renewed him, taken him out of the spirals of his mind. In this snug chamber, with the grasses waving above, he wanted to hear his bow pull resonance from strings, mellow G and the singing clarity of D. 

Low notes reverberated beautifully around the room, and he was just trying out the highest pitch of the ocarina when his pocket telephone chimed in. A number he didn’t recognise.

“Hello?” he answered.

Footsteps on the stairs.

A woman’s voice. “Oh, hello, is that Azeera—sorry, Asif, oh I am so sorry, I had written it down when Crowley—” 

“Ezra is probably easiest, my dear. How can I help you?”

Crowley’s face over the banister: “Did you say something—oh. Who’s that?”

He shooed him away, curious to talk to anyone who had wheedled his name out of Crowley. 

“Ezra, yes. Sorry! My name is Shami Beckwell, and I’m Crowley’s solicitor—”

Aziraphale took himself right to the other side of the room, out of earshot.

“—and now you’ve settled matters on the property, I was calling to see if you’d like to come to Brighton to do the land registry paperwork, or if you prefer to do things electronically.”

_Settled_ matters. Oh, slithery serpent.

“Ah yes, Ms Beckwell. Lovely to speak with you. Crowley’s mentioned you a number of times, though of course I can never recall all the details. Remind me again what this particular bit of the process is?” He shifted into AZ Fell Antiquarian and Rare Book Seller mode. (Anathema teased him often enough about sounding forgetful and dithery over the phone to customers.) 

“Oh, sure. It’s the transfer of the deed from Crowley to joint ownership, and there’s also the planning permission documents which I know he wanted you to—”

A demonic click, and Crowley’s voice joined them on the line: “Shami, you bloody menace, I haven’t got that far—”

Joint ownership. Still processing that, Aziraphale took a while to clock that Crowley was having a wee spat with the lawyer. The demon’s own fault, he laughed, as he listened to their back and forth; hadn’t he adopted the Beckwells precisely because they provided a proper challenge to supernatural wits?

“I told you to ring him after the solstice!” He could hear Crowley pacing up—and down—the stairs.

A snort on the other end. “Yes, and it’s a good few hours later!”

Silence for a moment.

“Four thirty one am?” Shami prompted helpfully.

“Ohhh for—I meant the day, not the precise moment the ball of fire is closest to the earth.” Crowley came into the room, gesticulating with an arm up in the direction of the offending ball of fire. 

“Occupational hazard, Crowley. Facts and details are very important when you’re a lawyer—”

“Oi, _I_ was a bloody lawyer—”

“Oh yes, that’s right. While ago now though, wasn’t it? Gosh, I remember you telling me when I was a kid, what was it, a nose for an argument and a good eye for detail—”

Aziraphale was having a hard time keeping a straight face, watching Crowley’s frustration at being outmanoeuvred by his own protege. Humans could be as cunning as any denizen of Hell, and here was proof.

“Besides, I thought you were into astronomy and all that. Nav still has that massive telescope you gave him for his eighteenth birthday.” Her tone shifted, all chirpy. “Well, what a pickle of a misunderstanding. Ezra, are you still there?”

“Still here, my dear. In person would be lovely.” Any individual who could undermine Crowley’s secret plans with total deniability was a definite future friend. “Though I believe we have a few things to discuss here, first.”

“You’ll be going on your own, angel,” Crowley said grumpily. “And you’re in my bad books, Shami.”

“Of course,” she said politely. “Invoice to the new place or Mayfair as usual?” 

Crowley jabbed the phone in a huff and stood glaring with his arms folded while Aziraphale wished Shami a lovely weekend and promised to visit her in Brighton.

“Joint ownership? I like her, by the way.”

“Was meant to be a surprise—look, come downstairs.”

They tumbled out onto the patio, their way slowed by the way Crowley kept rounding on him with suspicious scrutiny of his every facial expression.

(“You’re _smirking_.”

“I am not smirking. I am an _angel_.”

“You just pinched my arse, how is _that_ angelic?”)

A pile of bricks had a wide plank set across it, at a workable height. As he watched Crowley fuss about it, Aziraphale wondered what their eventual table might look like—what would be most comfortable for the feasts he planned to create, and for long hours lingering in the evening-bloom scent of the garden. Eventually, Crowley seemed to run out of nervous things to do, grimaced, and motioned him over.

“Yeaaaah so. Here.” Crowley snapped his fingers, plucked a rolled scroll out of the aether, and thrust it at him.

A scroll.

Bemused, Aziraphale asked a clean tablecloth to arrange itself over the plank so he could spread out the parchment with weights at its edges. Painstakingly lettered but unadorned, and leaning in, Aziraphale could recognise Crowley’s own hand—blessedly right way round for once. From behind him, Crowley muttered something but he ignored him, his heart and mind too deeply occupied.

He scanned. _This indenture_ ; _Principality_ ; _Nominal payment_. Not in perpetuity, but—

“Back-rent,” Crowley said. “Up until today.”

Aziraphale straightened. He thought about what Crowley had said on _Columba_ : no more capital A arrangements. He could see that this would indeed end such things once and for all. The offer was on the table, so to speak.

And now for his consideration.

He just wanted to kiss him, really. But he knew that wasn’t what Crowley needed. Not when Crowley had _signed_ it. Set his true name in that ember-glow sigil that was the only thing that could truly bind him. But it was the second signature scrawled beside it that felt so significant. _Anthony J Crowley_ , it read. A declaration, and a promise, in every plane Crowley could make it.

A declaration and a promise that deserved to be met with matching intent. He closed his eyes, rolled his shoulders, and manifested his wings.

“The nominal payment?”

Crowley snapped, and a box appeared next to the scroll. Aziraphale slowly lifted the lid. Inside was a large pepper mill, a beautiful construction of polished walnut and crystal and mechanical steel. There were phials of peppercorns set beside it, and more inside ready to grind.

Aziraphale laughed: joy and pride and amusement. “Just how much back-rent do you owe? One a year? Did you count them all out, you fiend?”

A grin from Crowley, so clearly relief, but also mischief and delight enough to make him want to—

Do this properly. Because things that mattered should be done properly.

“It’s acceptable,” he said. “I accept these terms, and this historic matter is now closed. Quill,” he ordered. If he tried to say more, he might burst.

Crowley’s hands were gentle, careful, on his wing. There was a brief sizzle of pleasure/pain as he pulled, and energy became matter. Aziraphale took the offered feather. He licked the tip, wetting it, and turned back to the parchment.

He inscribed, _The Angel Aziraphale, Principality_ , _Guardian of the Eastern Gate._

Then he paused, handed the feather back to Crowley and summoned a ball-point pen. _Ezra Fell_ , he wrote.

When he was finished, stepping back in satisfaction and mantling his wings away, Crowley was there to wrap his arms around him. Lovely, but there was just enough room for Aziraphale to reach back to pick up the mill. He gave it a proper inspection this time and an experimental twist. The finest grind was spectacularly fine as it scattered across Crowley’s chest and into the wind. 

“This,” he noted, once he’d had that kiss he’d so craved, “is going to be very useful next time you want steak and eggs.”

On the morning after the longest day of the year, he woke with the sun. He hummed, looking up at the pinkening sky, his hand searching out Crowley’s still-slumbering warmth. The clouds were moving quickly; they’d clear soon enough for a fine day.

The remnants of their celebratory picnic had discreetly packed themselves away, but clearly they themselves had lingered too long to be tidied in turn. Was this the first time an evening had lasted until they’d fallen asleep on the picnic blanket? He thought it must be; a new experience. And also...hmm. He stretched, not quite a languid stretch such that his lithe demon might achieve, but a respectably athletic attempt for an angel with a crick in his back.

He lay back again, palming the shallow dip above Crowley’s bum. His skin was warm, thrumming with life. Experimentally, he spread his other hand on the grass beside the blanket. The same thrum, something just as elemental. Closing his eyes, he enjoyed the feeling of a circuit completed.

He must have dozed off, because when he opened his eyes again the sun was higher and the blue-edged pink was a stronger gold. Crowley was awake, curled towards him, blinking sleepily.

“This is very nice,” murmured Aziraphale.

“Nnnghhoffee,” said Crowley.

“I _think_ I heard coffee there?”

“Errghhmm?”

His bare chest was tempting, but Aziraphale knew the correct priorities. “If you’re offering.”

He sat up to better savour the delicious image of Crowley swaying off up towards the patio. No doubt one of those monstrously complex espresso machines would be making itself useful very shortly.

He pulled on yesterday’s shirt, located his trousers, and stood for another stretch while he contemplated the dawn. The landscape here truly was made for these flattering extremes of the light. He wandered out across the turf, his toes curling into the dew-damp grass. That sense of a circuit complete was as strong, as compelling. He looked out over yews at the base of the hill until the chittering of magpies distracted. There they were, a cheeky pair of them—two for joy—hopping across the grass before disappearing from sight.

He set off to follow. Back up and round by the side of the patio then down through the lavender terraces. Past the willow archway, where the bees would be waking about their business with the apple trees. The flat stone steps were cool under his feet, bending with the shape of the hill, and leading him down, down, farther than he’d come yet. Ahead of him, one of the magpies fluttered into a birch tree, to oversee his progress.

The steps ran out into the rougher reaches of the lower slope. Another pile of building materials flagged intent for a later project. But Aziraphale found he was more than content to explore the different trees, the shade flowers shyly blooming beneath them, the potential for a hydrangea dell (he couldn’t _wait_ for Crowley’s face if he offered such a specific gardening opinion), and ah, there—

A glint of gold near his feet caught his gaze. Another branch of the meandering rill trickled by, running freely over the exposed chalk before percolating into the stones of an old wall. In this morning stillness, he could hear the water burbling off on new paths below him. The shimmer was more than just the play of the sunrise: it was the sun itself, fire captured at noon-height in a precipitate of the elements, the whole mix poured with intent and love into the lightning-struck spring that fed the land. Their land.

(“One more thing,” Crowley had said, glancing at his watch as Aziraphale re-tied the scroll and tucked it safely away. Aziraphale had waited, bemused at his armful of goods: pepper and salt, a very old amphora of wine and the little ocarina, all of which Crowley had unceremoniously stowed in a terracotta planter to be carried up to the ridge.

Then, at the spring, the meaning became clear as the sun blazed overhead. Air and earth—music and seasoning. Ancient wine, tarry and putrid spat out in laughter—water nonetheless. Fire—his own feather plucked from where Crowley wore it jauntily behind one ear. And just before midday, one last impulse, his beloved’s own feather, carrying the burden of memory over centuries, now weightless as he unbound it from the broken arrow shaft.

Crowley had glanced at him, but Aziraphale only had the words of the promises he’d already made. _I will not hide love away ever again. I will be here, with you._

Actions, instead, to make truth. 

He looked up to the sun, felt her heat as a kindred body to his Self, and called her down to them, to the elements that bound them together and to the world. Their offerings blazed for an instance, splintering into aethereal matter both sparking and kaleidoscopic. 

“To strong foundations,” Crowley said, sprinkling the particles into the fissure of the spring.

Aziraphale did the same, and clasped their dusty hands together. “To knowing what’s under your feet.”)

The stretch of wall was very old. A remnant, enough to stand a symbolic sentinel. Aziraphale ran his palm along the rough edges, feeling for where human hands had shaped it long ago. A murmur, perhaps, but so faint that there was nothing to hear. The magpies made restless noises as his explorations hurried them along its length. He smiled at his new acquaintances, leaning back to rest, enjoying the warmth and solidity of the stones at his back.

“You’ve been keeping Crowley company, haven’t you? I wonder what—”

He broke off.

There by the rill Crowley was laughing, her face and arms smudged dirty. She held a rake in one hand and the shirt collar of a little dark-haired girl in the other. A father, a brother, were sitting at the end of the stone steps, laughing too as they watched. He blinked, and Crowley and her friends were gone, but all around were white clouds of flowers blooming off overbrimming hydrangea bushes. 

The sun dappled through the trees, filtering through changing, falling, blooming leaves in rapid-fire days and years and decades. The land around them mutable and shaped under their working hands and their grounded feet. More humans here: faces ever changing, presence always welcomed. Past human sight—the sea and her slow encroachment. Through the estuary, until the delta became flooded and the water began its rise. Like Dunwich, like the tidal pressure of Crowley’s desire; the sea inexorable and immovable as it lapped its slow erosion to the edges of his Principality. Until the day he and Crowley moved on, to another piece of land, on another part of their Earth, their home.

The magpies chattered, and he blinked again to the present. To the tinkling sounds of a stream gilded with love, to the faint whisper of the people who had first come to this place. To be aware again of his mortal-feeling body with its cricked spine, and its kiss-marked skin, and the storylines of his long life etched in ink and gold.

Was this what it would mean, to be entirely himself? To be there, fully in the moment. To face forward.

A dream: The desert. An endless eastern wall at his back. A brushstroke for every year. The light so harsh, the world new and _empty_.

He could feel it now, know it. Brushstrokes that would never be done, but never, _ever_ with futility. A world that now teemed with life. Crowded and messy and beautiful.

An endless wall at his back, grounding him, and only himself as the gate.

He stepped back onto the patio as Crowley came through from the kitchen with two mugs.

“I’ve had an idea for the garden,” Aziraphale told him, and the demon’s expression was every bit as rewarding as he might hope.

  
  
  


_**The end.** _

### Authors' notes

**Architecture  
** [ Secular Retreat ](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/oct/28/secular-retreat-devon-review-peter-zumthor-living-architecture-rowan-moore) set the basics for the kind of low-lying, [inside-out structure](https://www.living-architecture.co.uk/the-houses/a-secular-retreat/overview/) that floats along a slope. The contrast of the thick walls with the endless windows is immensely appealing. Secular Retreat uses concrete with the appearance of rammed earth, but we imagine Crowley, with your actual OG experience of rammed-earth building, would have repurposed what he dug out for the majority of the walls. Not that there isn’t concrete, but where it is a floor or a wall it is the glossy, paper-smooth sort that a 1500-year old tapestry looks very well against. Where earth and glass wouldn’t do for load-bearing, Crowley has gone for weathered steel, as your authors would do should they be in a position to build a house. The other inspiration was [Ty Hedfan](http://www.ty-hedfan.co.uk/), with its massive cantilever and the rooms partly buried under a slope. Where Crowley’s design emerges from underground, it forms a double-storied space (or volume, when you have read too many architecture magazines). Great steel girders then carry the living spaces out to float over the slope above the yew trees. We tried to paint a word picture of the interior spaces, but should you need more of a moodboard for both inside and out, see Blythe’s [Tumblr post](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/622472997862850560/planning-permission) for this chapter.

**_Burlington Magazine  
_ ** “The world's leading monthly publication devoted to the fine and decorative arts.” Crowley was a-slumber when [this magazine](https://www.burlington.org.uk) was founded in 1903, but became an immediate subscriber as soon as he got wind of it. Almost certainly he’s published various critical contributions over the years under a nom de plume. 

**_Envy of Angels_** **, The Muttonbirds  
** Music was a key part of our creative process (see Blythe’s tumblr [post](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/619924873038512128/planning-permission)), but this song—sound, sentiment, [lyrics](https://genius.com/The-mutton-birds-envy-of-angels-lyrics)—has always been the soul of the story, and the fixed point ending we were aiming our angel and demon towards. Here's to knowing what's under your feet.

**Hammock  
** We have teased this hammock for many chapters; it’s a variation on [this](https://imoutsidelookingin.tumblr.com/post/621715081060827136/helloplantlover).

**Ipswich tattoo  
** Circe tried her best, there never seemed the right moment in this chapter to actually describe the post-pilgrimage tattoo Aziraphale got in Ipswich. Picture a framed medieval woodcut with a stylised _caravel_ ship like the _Mattea_ , and gusting line-cut wind overhead and waves below curling serpentine. Beneath it says, “Fair winds”. Imagine something like [this](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-spanish-ship-1496-na-typical-late-15th-century-spanish-ship-woodcut-95516802.html), but that the artist was [Stanley Donwood](https://www.jealousgallery.com/artists/stanley-donwood).

**Modern-looking set of dining chairs  
**This is wishful thinking on the part of the authors, who in over 13 years of cohabitation have yet to find dining chairs that they both agree tick the form and function box AND work for both of our differing leg-to-back ratios and AND do not cost £900 each.

**Papasan chair  
** [ Made](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papasan_chair) for sneks. Also an [ interesting history](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/papasan-chairs). Yet another chair the authors do not agree on.

**Pastries  
**There are some exceptional artisanal bakeries in our city and we are both dismally (for the sake of our arteries) unable to turn down a well-laminated croissant. The reliable acquisition of fresh pastries during the pandemic lockdown of 2020 has been an eternal struggle for your authors, whose jobs have not allowed furloughed free time to develop patisserie skills. There was a brief and glorious four weeks where a local deli was doing vege boxes and pastries for Saturday morning pick-up, and all was righter with this crazy world. Aziraphale’s impulses make total sense to us both, hence the appearance here and in other chapters of angel + baked goods.

**Peppercorn rent ceremony  
** We knew that Crowley would have to fess up about squatting on prime Principality real estate sometime, and even his investments might be depleted by two thousand years worth of back rent. In our own house-buying adventures we have come across some fucking bonkers Ye Olde English legalities (look up [Chancel Repair Liability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability): we are in the parish of a CATHEDRAL). Peppercorn rent is one such bonkers notion, and it [still goes on](https://londonist.com/london/history/the-covent-garden-rent-ceremony). Because these things are important, Crowley gives Aziraphale a pepper grinder based on the original Peugot model (yes, the car people): his own personal modifications, of course.

**Shipping Forecast  
** You are either thinking “what the fuck is the [shipping forecast](https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/specialist-forecasts/coast-and-sea/shipping-forecast)” or “[shipping forecast](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/24/shipping-forecast-marks-150-years-service-bbc-met-office), a bit cliche innit?” Basically, it’s a nicely sonorous maritime weather forecast that sends you to sleep.

**Solstice  
**In addition to being the longest day of the year, where the sun is closest to the earth in the summering hemisphere, the solstice also has a precise point in time. True to her nosy trouble-making ancestry, Shami Beckwell is not above a bit of trickery to pull one over the family’s pet demon.

**The end  
**It’s been a joy, thank you.  
  
(Ok, who are we kidding, there’s bound to be outtakes; vote for your favourite non-playing character in the comments.)

#### Music from the Planning Permission playlist: Chapter 19

[Envy of Angels](https://open.spotify.com/track/0YPIETceecHVR0VWuRPRT3?si=zCc6TbHdSsGPS4iRQF0SOw)  
The Muttonbirds

**Perfumes**

[Quelques Fleurs](https://www.houbigant-parfum.com/eu_en/quelques-fleurs-l-original.html/), by Houbigant _  
_ Crowley: A garden dripping with summer blooms, and the creamy note of gorse

[Remarkable People](https://www.etatlibredorange.com/en/boutique/remarkable-people/), by Etat Libre d’Orange _  
_ Aziraphale: A solstice celebration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readers! Thank you for reading! Your comments and enthusiasm have fuelled us to the end of the story. For those just meeting this story for the first time, we'd love to hear from you :)
> 
> (If you want to really delve into Crowley's architectural mood board, Blythely brings on the cantilever in her Tumblr post [here](https://blythe-ly.tumblr.com/post/622472997862850560/planning-permission).
> 
> (And there's a Spotify link to the full Planning Permission playlist in the story summary.)


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